


Secrets in the Dark

by Wonko



Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, Holby City
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Daemons, Amputation, Dark, F/F, Heavy Angst, Loss of Limbs, Minor Character Death, Permanent Injury, Serious Injuries, Slow Burn, Spies & Secret Agents, Surgery, see notes for further content/trigger warnings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-05
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-08-19 11:37:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 23,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16533872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wonko/pseuds/Wonko
Summary: Bernie Wolfe is used to travelling the world for her work - both as a surgeon and an operative for the Oakley Street underground. Injured in the line of duty, she’s forced to return home, her body broken and her daemon forever changed by her experiences. Assigned to work in St Luke's hospital in Bristol, she is at first disgruntled to have been retired, although happy to reconnect with an old university acquaintance, Serena Campbell.But there are whispers growing of a secret faction of the Church bent upon looking into one of the world's great mysteries. Deep in the basement labs of St Luke's hospital, John Gaskell works with his small group of volunteers to unravel this unanswered question. His research soon comes to horrifying fruition and threatens Bernie's life - or is it her soul?





	1. Damascus

**Author's Note:**

> This is an AU - or, more properly, a crossover - set in the world of Philip Pullman's _His Dark Materials_. It's set about three years after the events of _La Belle Sauvage_ , which makes it about seven years before the beginning of the original book trilogy. Knowledge of these books will be very beneficial but hopefully not essential. For now, if you are unfamiliar with the books or the world, all you need to know is that the world is similar to ours, but all humans have a daemon companion which takes the form of an animal. This daemon is an aspect of the person that exists apart from them, and is one of three aspects of the human - their soul. This world is politically quite different from ours, and the Church is a much more powerful entity than in this world.
> 
> This is going to be quite a dark story. Please pay attention to the tags and to specific content/trigger warnings in certain chapters.
> 
> If you're finding this through the HDM section of the site, knowledge of the characters and plot of Holby City will be more or less unnecessary to enjoy the story.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bernie is caught in an exploding zeppelin, but the injuries to her own body are nothing compared to the ordeal her daemon must go through.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content/trigger warning: this chapter contains descriptions of surgery and is pretty angsty.

When Bernie thought back on it later, all she remembered was the noise. She knew there must have been light and pain too - zeppelins didn’t crash without those things - but they hadn’t registered as clearly as the explosion, the sound of tearing metal, the screams of her fellow passengers. And, of course, her own.

Indeed, she didn’t become aware of the pain for several hours; not until she was excavated from the smoking wreckage, her daemon managing to limp onto the stretcher with her, the rare anbaric lights of Damascus streaking past as she drifted in and out of consciousness and the surgeons worked frantically to stabilise her condition before they reached the hospital.

She had been on her way back to Kandahar to resume her work with her regiment. She was a surgeon herself, one of the few women to ascend to that position in the Brytish Army. She’d been on leave from her post, pursuing other projects. Unfortunately, her time in Damascus had been largely fruitless, and she’d have little to report to her superiors when she could speak to them again. If she spoke to them again.

She could hear the surgeons whispering darkly as she swam in and out of awareness, could feel their anxiety as they stole glances at her and her daemon, Luna - a great Arctic wolf. Luna’s normally pristine white fur was caked and streaked with blood. Bernie wasn’t sure how much of it was hers, how much Luna’s and how much belonged to the man who’d been standing next to her just before the explosion. A shudder ran through her at the thought. Luna, sensing her disquiet, scrambled up onto the bed and nestled against her side. Bernie wished she could reach up and run her fingers through Luna’s soft fur, but her arms felt heavy as lead.

Luna tended to stand out wherever they went, wolf daemons being fairly out of the ordinary in this day and age, at least outside of Tartar lands. The propensity for members of her family to have their daemons settle as wolves was, however, not unheard of. She knew of a family named Faulkner whose daemons almost always settled as falcons, for example. Indeed, it was unclear whether the affinity for the bird had been the origin of the family name in the distant past, or vice versa. The same was true for the Wolfe family. However, her father and brothers’ daemons had all settled as slate-grey timber wolves. Luna was the only Arctic wolf daemon in their family in living memory and she was unusual for more than just her striking features. Most people’s daemons were of the opposite sex to their humans. No-one knew why some rare individuals were born with daemons of the same sex, but Bernie had heard a whisper that a certain faction of the Church was interested in looking into the matter, which could mean no good at all.

“I think we’re in trouble this time,” Luna whispered, her voice tight with pain and with the strain of trying to conceal it. Pointless, really, because Bernie could feel every ounce of it, every wave of agony, just as Luna could feel hers. They were, of course, really one being.

“Nonsense,” she whispered back, her jaw tightening. “Been in far worse scrapes than this. Remember that time Higgins crashed the gyrocopter and we spent a month in plaster?” But even as she said it she knew that this was worse. She couldn’t feel her feet, and hadn’t felt brave enough to ask one of the surgeons if her spinal cord had been compromised or if there was another, less sinister reason for the numbness. Forgetting the bravado, she felt Luna nestle closer to her, the great wolf burying her nose in Bernie’s neck. “I’d rather be dead than paralysed,” she murmured.

“Don’t be a fool,” Luna grumbled, but Bernie knew she felt the same. For a moment she breathed deeply, trying to be calmed by the closeness of Luna, the familiar animal smell of her, her warm weight and soft breath.

Just then, one of the conferring surgeons peeled away from the group and strode over to her side, his magpie daemon resting neatly on his shoulder. “How are you feeling?” he asked, but Bernie thought it was more for form’s sake than anything else.

“Like I was in a zeppelin that blew up,” she replied sharply. “Give me the prognosis.”

The unfamiliar doctor managed a wan smile. “You have unstable fractures in two of the vertebrae of your neck.”

Bernie felt the blood drain from her face, but she forced herself to breathe. Luna concealed her feelings much less successfully, unable to hold in a deep whine of pain and fear. Bernie, unable to move her arms to comfort her, rubbed her cheek against the soft fur of her daemon’s face and raised her eyebrow at the doctor. “When will you operate?”

The man’s daemon fluttered her wings, and he seemed to cringe. “There is also a problem with your heart. There has been damage...our heart surgeon fears that if it is not corrected at once, there may be a rupture before your neck can be repaired.”

Bernie felt her stomach twist. “And if you crack open my chest to fix my heart, my spinal cord will very likely suffer irreparable damage,” she extrapolated.

The unfamiliar doctor looked down at his hands and simply nodded.

Bernie took a deep breath, her mind racing. It was beginning to look like death or paralysis were, in fact, her two options. For a moment she almost got lost in quiet despair, and then she heard Luna grunt, “Together,” and her thoughts cleared.

“Do it together,” she said. “Monitor the heart while you work on the fractures - if it looks like rupturing, then crack me open.” She met her doctor’s eyes and stared at him meaningfully. “If there’s no realistic chance of saving the spinal cord, you needn’t work too hard for a successful outcome.”

The doctor blanched at that, his daemon squawking suddenly in surprise and disapproval. “I can’t do that, Dr Wolfe,” he said firmly. “Only our Lord can decide when to call a life into his arms.”

Bernie could practically hear Luna’s derisive voice, but her daemon held her tongue and Bernie just nodded tightly. “Then do your best to keep me both alive and whole, doctor.”

The next few minutes were a blur of activity, but at last Luna dropped heavily to the floor and climbed painfully onto the lower shelf of the gurney, specially designed to transport patients’ daemons, so they could be wheeled into theatre. She was dimly aware, as the anaesthetic began to take hold, of a priest performing the Last Rights.

It didn’t exactly fill her with confidence as she slid into the depths of unconsciousness.

* * *

When she woke again it was to pain like she’d never felt. Her whole body seemed to be throbbing with it, but she took some kind of comfort from that. If her legs hurt, she couldn’t be paralysed.

The doctor with the magpie daemon - Dr Amari - seemed pleased with her progress. “We almost lost you on the table,” he said. “But by God’s grace, we were able to save you. You’ve been very lucky.”

Bernie didn’t feel particularly lucky.

In the long days and weeks of her convalescence, her mind wandered back to the explosion more and more. She’d been tracking someone - an enemy - before she’d been forced to abandon the pursuit and return to Kandahar. Had she been compromised? Had the zeppelin been sabotaged somehow to target her? It seemed so unlikely, but she’d come to believe in a lot of unlikely things over the course of her eventful life, so she hadn’t ruled it out. Her mind spun conspiracy theory after conspiracy theory during her forced inactivity, and gradually the frustration of not knowing - and the pain of her slowly healing injuries - made her become more and more short with the nurses and junior surgeons sent to care for her.

“You can’t take your pain out on other people,” Luna snapped after Bernie had sent a young woman with a terrier daemon scuttling from the room on the brink of tears.

“I know,” Bernie snapped back. “I just...this _bloody_ leg…”

Luna limped over to her and settled her head heavily onto Bernie’s right knee. “I know,” the daemon said gently. “I can feel it too, remember?”

Bernie let her hand settle on Luna’s shaggy head. “I know. I’m sorry. I’ll finally have to mention it to Amari when he comes round next, I suppose.” She frowned, wondering vaguely why this injury hadn’t been treated at the same time as the others. “The neck and the heart were urgent enough that I expect they thought the leg could wait,” she concluded at last.

“Hmm,” Luna hummed in response, and fell silent.

But when Bernie did finally bring up the pain in her leg to Dr Amari, she was met with a puzzled frown.

“I don’t understand,” he said, his daemon moving restlessly from foot to foot on his shoulder. “Your legs weren’t injured, Dr Wolfe. We’ve treated all of your injuries.”

Bernie’s face twisted in confusion. “But...I’m telling you, it _hurts,”_ she insisted, then gestured at Luna. “Look at my dameon. She can barely walk.” And it was certainly true that Luna cut a rather pathetic figure, hobbling towards Bernie to demonstrate her invalidity to the doctor.

He seemed to hesitate for a moment, glancing between Bernie and Luna. “I wish you’d mentioned this pain earlier,” he said gently, then slipped out of the room to confer with a nurse outside. Bernie watched the back of his head, and then noticed that the magpie daemon was staring at Luna with what seemed almost like pity in her glassy eyes.

A few minutes later, Dr Amari came back into the room with a young nurse whose daemon was in the form of a capuchin monkey. “I’ve brought Nurse Safar here to examine your daemon,” he said solemnly. “With your permission.”

With a sinking feeling in the pit of stomach, Bernie nodded. Luna seemed to shrink before the monkey daemon, and Bernie felt her fear and dread like a knife in her own heart.

Gently, the monkey daemon began to examine Luna’s forelegs, testing the muscles and bones and joints. When he reached the knee joint of Luna’s right foreleg, the wolf yelped in pain and Bernie jerked too, her own leg blooming with what she now suddenly recognised as sympathetic agony. With a jolt, she understood that the pain in her leg had never truly been hers. It astounded her that she hadn’t realised it before, but of course both human and daemon felt the same pains and perhaps it wasn’t so surprising that things had become a little confused.

The nurse conferred in low tones with the doctor while the monkey daemon fussed and stroked Luna, like her mother’s daemon had done for her when she was a child and afraid of the dark.

“Dr Wolfe,” Dr Amari began gently, after nodding to the nurse that she could leave. “It appears...that is to say, I’m afraid that-”

“Spit it out, doctor,” she ground out between clenched teeth.

The magpie daemon bowed her head and fluttered her wings, seemingly unable to look at Luna. “We believe the only course of action is...amputation.”

The blood drained from Bernie’s face, leaving her as white as her daemon’s fur. Luna’s ears flattened against her skull. Bernie struggled to speak, to breathe. She had been prepared to hear that Luna was injured, that she’d require a lot of rest, some rehabilitation. She’d even been prepared to be told that her beloved daemon would be weakened permanently, that they would always bear some remnant of this pain. But this...this permanent, visible, unignorable sign of her own stubbornness and stupidity…

“If I’d told you about the pain earlier, could you have done something?” she finally managed to ask, her voice as colourless as her face.

Dr Amari hesitated. “Perhaps,” he admitted. “I’m sorry. This is the only way now.”

Bernie’s ears filled with static as he began to talk about the requirements for the surgery, the cedarwood operating table that would put Luna to sleep, the lengths to which the surgeon would go to avoid touching Luna any more than necessary.

“What?” Bernie said, the last of his words finally penetrating her consciousness.

He squirmed slightly. “I realise it is...distasteful, Dr Wolfe,” he said. “But the surgeon will be required to touch your daemon during the operation.” His natural disgust at the idea was obvious, but Bernie could tell he was doing his best to disguise that under a professional mask.

The thought of another’s hands on her beloved daemon filled Bernie with a deep and visceral loathing. It was the great taboo, something that was either innate to all creatures with daemons or learned at such a young age as it made no odds. In all her years, only one human being had ever touched Luna, and Bernie had loved that person like she was a part of her own soul.

“No,” she said firmly, tears glittering in her eyes. “No-one touches her. I’ll perform the operation myself.”

“You can’t!” the magpie daemon squawked, speaking to Bernie for the first time. Dr Amari shushed her before turning to Bernie with a pitying expression.

“Dr Wolfe, the pain you’d experience doing such an operation yourself-”

“-is a pain I’ll be feeling anyway,” Bernie interrupted forcefully. She set her jaw. “It’s my fault this is happening to her,” she said. “I won’t also subject her to the indignity of being touched by some stranger.”

Dr Amari opened his mouth as if to argue, but a low growl that came from deep in Luna’s throat made him snap his mouth closed again.

“Bernie will do the operation,” Luna said, her voice low and dangerous. “I won’t allow anyone else to touch me.”

Dr Amari stared at Luna for a long moment before his daemon fluttered off his shoulder. There wasn’t a lot of room for flying in the tiny room, but she managed to make her way to Luna almost gracefully and land between her shoulder blades. Neither human heard what passed between the two daemons, but in the end the magpie appeared satisfied and she flapped back to Dr Amari’s shoulder. He regarded her with some bewilderment, but she just shook her head.

At last he nodded. “I’ll go and make the preparations,” he said. “It’s best we do it quickly.”

When he was gone, Bernie slumped back against the pillows, tears stinging her eyes. Luna limped over to her and scrambled up onto the bed, leaning her body heavily against Bernie’s side. Breath coming in shallow gasps, Bernie opened her arms and let Luna collapse into them, burying her face in the soft fur of her neck. “I’m so sorry,” she gasped, her heart breaking.

“It’s not like you were the only one keeping quiet,” Luna murmured back, her voice vibrating gently against Bernie’s chest. “Too stoic and stubborn for our own good, aren’t we?”

Bernie nodded miserably, clutching Luna close to her, trying desperately to stretch out these last few moments when her dear companion would be entire and whole. But soon - much too soon - Dr Amari returned with an impossibly solemn look on his face and informed her that the operating theatre had been prepared.

Numbly, she slipped off the bed. Her right leg was in agony, but she was determined to walk into the surgery. Luna was at her side, bracing against her knee, almost holding her up despite the incredible pain Bernie knew she was in. “I’m sorry,” she whispered again, and the words tasted of salt.

The theatre was like any other in which she’d operated: clean, sterile, bright, cold. The only difference was the operating table, which was made of pure cedarwood. Cedarwood had a soporific effect on daemons, and it was by lying on this table that Luna would be able to sleep while Bernie remained conscious.

Bernie grunted as she kneeled down to face her daemon. Their eyes met and what felt like a lifetime’s worth of wordless communication passed between them in a single instant. Bernie couldn’t help but think back to a moment from her childhood, back on her father’s estate: Lord Wolfe calling for her, angry - she didn’t remember why - and his daemon, Dianae, leading him towards where she and Luna were hiding. Luna hadn’t settled then and had always refused to become a wolf, much to her father’s disapproval. Bernie remembered being terribly afraid, Luna wrapped around her neck in the form of a ferret and bristling with fury as Dianae and Lord Wolfe got closer and closer.

And then Bernie had felt Luna slip from her neck and onto the ground, her form shifting and changing as she did so, growing, lengthening, her snout extending and her ears sharpening until, somehow both slowly and all of a sudden, Bernie was staring in awe at a great Arctic wolf. She was tall and powerful and strong - larger than any true wolf, bigger than Dianae or any of her brothers’ daemons - and fierce too. Terrible and beautiful, her fur was as white as the full moon above them, and her muscles rippled beneath her skin as she placed herself between Bernie and her pursuers. Bernie could feel her strength flowing into her, and it made her brave.

Her father and Dianae had stopped in their tracks and stood staring at Bernie and her wolf, anger forgotten. “Oh, well done,” her father said, his voice filled with a pride that Bernie was not used to hearing from him. For some reason, it made her angry.

“She didn’t change for _you!”_ she yelled, and Luna turned her back on Bernie’s father, lowering herself to the ground so that Bernie - who was still small and light enough then - could climb onto her back.

When Bernie first sank her fingers into the soft fur of Luna’s neck, a feeling of calm and rightness flowed over her, like the tingling sensation of sinking into a warm bath on a cold day. She could tell Luna felt it too, because she was practically vibrating with suppressed excitement as Bernie clambered onto her back. Then, when the child was secure, Luna threw back her head and let out her first wolf howl.

Wild delight burst inside Bernie’s chest like the fireworks they’d had on Guy Fawkes’ night, and then Luna was running, bounding across the fields faster than any daemon of the household could run, because none of them could bring their humans along on their backs like this, and none could stray far from them either before the invisible thread that connected human to daemon would begin to tug painfully at their hearts. Bernie whooped for joy, her voice mingling with Luna’s howls, her nerves singing, and for the first time in her young life she truly felt that she and Luna were one being, the same creature in two forms, and the love she felt for her daemon in that moment was deeper and purer than any she’d ever felt for a human being.

Luna’s form never changed again after that night.

“You’ll never run like that again,” Bernie whispered, tears slipping unheeded down her cheeks.

“Well, you’re getting a bit old to be chasing along beside me,” Luna answered, her voice so forcefully cheerful that Bernie knew it was an act. “Chin up soldier. I’m just another patient.”

Bernie laughed through her tears. “A bit furrier than most,” she said, and Luna ducked her head in acknowledgement before lapping gently at Bernie’s cheeks, licking away her tears and doing everything she could to transmit her own strength to her dear human.

It took her five minutes to fall asleep after she climbed onto the operating table. Bernie had never seen Luna asleep before as, naturally, her daemon slept only when she did. It was very strange to see her like this, unaware, insensible to all sensation, whether pleasurable or painful. The pain in Bernie’s knee had receded more and more the further Luna had slipped into unconsciousness, and now she felt normal again, able to stand up straight and take her full weight on both legs without effort.

The instruments she’d need had been left to the side, but Bernie took one last moment to stroke and caress her daemon before reaching for them. At last, she could put it off no longer. She knew exactly where to cut, just above the knee to preserve as much of the leg as possible. The scalpel in her hand was steady, years of battlefield surgery having hardened her constitution to the extent that even this horrendous moment could be borne.

She felt the cut like her own flesh had been pierced. She cried out and nearly stumbled, before gritting her teeth and forcing herself to press on. Luna needed her. She couldn’t fail, and force the doctors she knew were waiting just outside to take over, to touch her daemon in this vulnerable state. Angrily, she brushed a few traitorous tears away and set to work again, her scalpel cutting through skin and muscles and tendons before finding bone.

Her face chalk-white and her heart thumping, she placed the scalpel back down on the instrument tray and reached for the bone saw. Now her hands did tremble, but again she forced herself to proceed. Her breath was coming in deep, slow pants as she inhaled through her nose and exhaled tremulously through her mouth.

The sound of the saw cutting through Luna’s bone would live with her for the rest of her life. It would wake her screaming in the night, and return to her in weak moments during the day to seize at her heart like the cold grip of a ghost. It was excruciating, and she realised after a moment that some of the noise she could hear was a low, desperate keening emanating from her own throat, but she couldn’t seem to make herself be silent.

The operation seemed to last an eternity, but finally she felt the last of the resistance give, and she was holding Luna’s foreleg in her hands. She pulled it away from the rest of the wolf’s prone body, feeling sick and cold and clammy. For a moment the leg remained there, heavy and solid in her hands. But then it began to change, streaming away like smoke, dissolving into the air. Frantically she tried to hold on, to keep it with her somehow, but the tighter she held the more it seemed to flow away, like sand slipping through her fists at the beach.

Bernie had seen more than her share of death in her time. It was exactly what she’d seen happen to soldiers’ daemons when their humans died.

Numbly, Bernie turned back to Luna, still asleep and unaware of everything that had happened to her. There was just one last task to accomplish now. Silently, Bernie reached for the prepared needle and gut and began to suture the wound closed. Every pass of the needle was like a dagger in her own heart, but at last it was done, and she dropped the needle to the floor before collapsing forward, throwing her arms around Luna’s neck. Alone, without even her daemon’s familiar voice to ground her, Bernie broke down and began to weep, her body throbbing with pain like she’d never felt, but it was as nothing compared to the agony of her breaking heart.


	2. Aftermath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bernie and Luna begin to learn to live with their new reality. Both are eager to get back to their old life, but has what's happened to Luna made that impossible?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger/content warning: Blood.

After the surgery, Bernie and Luna were returned to their private room to recuperate. Days passed, bleeding into each other like watercolour paints. Bernie vacillated wildly from near catatonic silence, to helpless, violent weeping, to seething rages that had nurses scuttling from her room as soon as they’d checked her condition or delivered food. Luna simply lay in the corner of the room, as far from Bernie as their link would allow, curled up in a tight ball and occasionally worrying at her slowly healing stump.

But after a week of this, Bernie rolled onto her back one morning to find Luna clumsily trying to climb onto her bed. Unused to her new centre of gravity, the previously graceful daemon required several attempts before she could make her way up to slump heavily against Bernie’s side, panting like she’d run a race.

“What are you doing?” Bernie demanded fretfully. “You need to rest.”

“I’ve rested enough,” Luna snapped back. “And you’ve lain there like a sack of potatoes enough too. Amari said there was no reason why you couldn’t be walking around. Said it’d be good for you, in fact.”

Almost against her conscious will, Bernie’s eyes flicked down to Luna’s mutilated leg, the usual pang of pain and guilt stabbing at her heart. “I can’t make you walk with me in this state,” she muttered.

A low growl rumbled deep in Luna’s chest. “I’m never going to be in a better state,” she said. “And we’re not going to lie in this room for the rest of our lives. So get up, soldier. Time we both learned how to live like this.”

Bernie’s jaw tightened, her eyes narrowing as she battled against competing desires - to protect Luna on the one hand, and to get back to her life on the other. “All right,” she said at last, sitting up and swinging her legs over the edge of the bed and onto the cold tile floor. She supposed, after all, it was past time to stop feeling sorry for herself.

It was slow going at first. Bernie tired easily, and her body felt stiff and old from her long inactivity. But despite all that, she was still moving more gingerly than she might have done had Luna been uninjured and whole. She found herself constantly checking her progress, stopping for breathers she didn’t really need, one eye on Luna’s struggling form all the while. As they made their slow, painful way, Bernie accepted the encouraging smiles of the nurses with as much grace as she could muster, which wasn’t much. Luna stared steadfastly ahead, her eyes as dark and determined as Bernie had ever seen them, silent but for her laboured breath. But although it was painful and difficult, as the days passed they were able to do more and more. One circuit of the ward became two. Two quickly became three. But when Luna suggested a longer excursion, perhaps out of the hospital grounds completely, Bernie balked.

“You’re not ready,” she insisted. “What if it becomes too much for you when we’re out there? How would we get you back here? You’re too heavy for me to carry you.”

“Oh, even with all the weight I’ve lost recently?” Luna replied, glancing pointedly at her stump of a leg. “Should I go on a diet?”

Bernie’s cheeks flushed darkly. “You know what I mean,” she said. “I’m trying to protect you.”

“But I don’t want you to!” Luna barked, her voice harsh. “I want you to push me. I want us to get back to our old life, or as close to it as we can manage. We need to learn to get on with it, and we won’t do that with a safety net.” Bernie glanced at the still healing stump, but Luna shook her head roughly. “You let me worry about that.”

But Bernie did worry about it, almost non-stop. Memories of the surgery were on a near constant loop in her head - the antiseptic smell of the operating theatre, the stomach-churning scream of the bone saw, the weight of Luna’s leg in her hands before it dissolved and floated away like dust. She remembered seeing Luna wake from the surgery, the way she’d whined and cried, unable or unwilling to speak for days on end while Bernie lay in her hospital bed, eaten up by guilt and shame. She remembered watching Luna grooming herself for the first time since the operation, thought of how she’d tried to scratch her ear with a paw that wasn’t there. She remembered the look of confusion in her eyes, quickly chased away by a profound loss that cut Bernie right down to the quick. Even now, she knew Luna lay awake in the night, haunted by phantom pains from the missing limb - because Bernie felt the ghosts of those pains in her own leg, tormenting and torturing her, like they’d been sent to remind her constantly of her sins.

As if she needed any more reminders beyond the devastation that had been wrought upon her beloved daemon.

“Well?” Luna snapped, forcing Bernie’s mind back to the present. “Are we going out or not?”

Bernie sighed deeply, recognising the futility of arguing. “All right,” she replied at last. “But...tomorrow, all right? I’m tired.”

Luna conceded that point and they returned to their room: Bernie to her bed and Luna to the corner. Neither of them managed to fall asleep until deep into the desperate hours of the early morning, but neither broke their silence.

In the morning, Dr Amari visited for one of his now infrequent progress checks. Bernie had been healing so well that he’d largely passed her case on to his team of junior surgeons, but today he was taking the time to look her over himself.

“We’re honoured by the attention, doctor,” Bernie said. “Or have you been getting complaints about the mad English woman who can’t decide whether to scream or cry - when she isn’t abusing the people trying to care for her, of course.”

Dr Amari smiled genially, checking her pulse and her breathing before turning his attention to the scars on her chest and neck. “The stitches can be removed tomorrow, I think,” he murmured absently, before turning his compassion filled eyes to her face. “And yes, some whispers have reached me about a certain...intransigence, shall we say, from our resident soldier. Though much fewer in the last few days.” He smiled gently. “I hear you’ve been getting some exercise.”

Bernie nodded. “Yes. In fact, we were planning to leave the hospital for a bit today. If that’s all right with you.”

To her chagrin, Doctor Amari beamed. “A wonderful idea. There is a market just half a mile away - my cousin has a cafe there where you’ll find the best chocolatl in the city.”

Luna glared at her with triumph in her eyes, and Bernie bit back the words that had been forming in her mouth, about how a round trip of a mile might be too much for her daemon. It seemed that this was one battle she couldn’t win.

The streets were busy around the hospital, with patients arriving or being discharged and family members streaming in and out, as it was the time for visiting. But the crowds thinned after a few minutes, and she found herself walking through a slightly sleepier part of town in the direction the grinning Dr Amari had suggested. Bernie was glad of the relative solitude. It was good to feel vaguely anonymous again - though of course she still attracted a few stares, partly due to her shock of wavy golden hair, and partly due to her daemon. Luna was even more conspicuous now than she’d ever been, but she bore the slightly too sustained glances and behind the hand whispers with a quiet dignity that made Bernie’s spine straighten as they walked.

It took half an hour to make it to the leafy square that housed the marketplace. Bernie found a bench and sank into it gratefully, glad to have reached their destination without any mishaps. Luna collapsed on the ground at her feet, panting heavily, but she also seemed cheerful and glad to be away from the antiseptic scent of the hospital, relishing the smells of cooking meat and baking pastries from the various food carts doing a brisk trade in the mid-morning sun.

“I think I’m getting the hang of this you know,” Luna said, her breath still a little shallow. “I’ll be nearly as fast on three legs as I was on four one day, you’ll see.”

Bernie was on the point of replying that they should wait and see, take one day at a time, but when she saw the determined glint in Luna’s eyes she swallowed the words. “I know you will,” she said instead, and smiled when Luna leaned forward and licked her hand.

After a bit of rest, they got up and began to explore the market, listening to the hawkers and the bargainers performing their age old back and forth. She stopped at a stall selling silk scarves and ran her fingers over one in particular before attracting the attention of the stallholder. “How much?” she asked, trusting that the language of commerce would transcend any communication barrier.

By the gleam in the man’s eyes, she had guessed correctly. He held up four fingers and quoted a price that Bernie knew for certain was outlandishly high. She held up two fingers in return and they dickered back and forth for a pleasant five minutes before making a deal, with Bernie paying two golden coins and one copper one for the scarf, which she immediately used to cover her bright hair. It was the custom of many local women to cover their heads in public, and the additional anonymity the headscarf afforded her was a comfort as she set off again in search of Dr Amari’s cousin’s cafe.

Feeling almost human again after a mug of what was indeed some very fine chocolatl and some toothache-inducingly sweet baklava, Bernie checked her pocket watch and sighed. She supposed it was time to begin the trek back to the hospital. “Feeling up to heading back?” she asked Luna, who answered by clambering to her feet and limping a few steps away. Smiling, Bernie left a few coins on the table to cover her bill, plus some extra as thanks to the serving girl who hadn’t blinked an eye when she saw Luna’s condition. “Come on then,” she said.

But they had barely left the market square when a loud scream pierced the calm of the day. Shouts and exclamations quickly followed, and when Bernie turned she could see people streaming towards the source of the noise. “What’s going on?” she demanded of a passerby who was running flat out away from the square, in such a tone of authority that the young man skidded to a halt and almost saluted before he replied.

“Someone is hurt,” he said breathlessly. “There’s blood. I’m going to the hospital for help.”

Bernie nodded curtly and let him go, before looking down at Luna with her lower lip between her teeth. “We need to see if we can help.”

Luna nodded. “Go.”

Bernie hesitated. “We need to be quick,” she said, but Luna’s ears flattened back against her head in determination.

“Run,” she said. “Pull me.”

There was a heartbeat of hesitation, but then Bernie saw how useless it would be to argue. Luna had that look in her eye that meant her mind was made up, and besides - there wasn’t time to waste. Bernie took a deep breath, turned towards the sounds of commotion and pain, and began to run.

Almost instantly she felt the tug, like a ripping and tearing at her heart. She cried out, unable to stop herself, tears springing to her eyes as she forced herself to keep moving. After a second the sensation eased, and she knew that Luna was behind her, pushing herself as hard as she could, struggling to match Bernie’s pace so that they’d be free of the awful pulling. But before long Bernie could feel Luna tiring and she slowed again.

“Don’t stop,” she heard her daemon cry. “I can do it.”

So Bernie kept running, somehow bearing the pain like it was her due, her heart breaking with every step.

They had tried this when they were children - everyone did - and discovered that they could stand being a few feet further apart than most people. But it hurt almost intolerably, and Bernie found herself brushing away tears of anguish as she pushed forward, seeking out the source of the terrible screams that were - thank goodness - getting louder and louder.

At last Bernie burst through a line of onlookers and found a young man...no, just a boy...lying under a collapsed cart, his leg trapped and bleeding, people looking on with bewildered expressions as though they weren’t quite sure what to do. “Help me!” Bernie demanded of the nearest able bodied men, before throwing herself into trying to pull the cart off the screaming child.

She could feel the stitches in her chest straining as she pulled, and the thought that this wasn’t very clever at all crossed her mind briefly before three men joined her, apparently jolted into activity by her actions. At least the awful pain of separation was easing, Bernie thought dimly, and then Luna was there, panting and gasping, but still determined. She found the young man’s daemon, a shaggy looking mongrel dog who was crying and howling nearly as much as the injured boy, and made her way across to her.

“Enough of that,” she said, her voice harsh. “He needs you to be strong for him. Help him manage the pain.”

The boy’s daemon cowered and shifted into the form of a rabbit. Bernie’s heart clenched painfully as she realised how young the boy must be if his daemon hadn’t even settled. He could be no more than fourteen, though tall for his age, with the first dustings of a beard on a face that was now pale and shining with sweat and terror.

Luna grabbed the rabbit daemon by the scruff of her neck and shook her. With a sudden squeal of outrage, the boy’s incessant screaming ceased as the shock of it hit him, but before he could protest, Luna dropped the rabbit and addressed her again.

“It’s no good being cowardly,” she insisted. “I know it hurts. We’re helping him as quickly as we can, but you’re the one he needs. Be strong.”

The rabbit cowered for a moment or two longer but then, with what Bernie could tell was a supreme effort of will, her form began to shift. Bernie blinked, and when she opened her eyes again there were two wolves in front of her, and Luna was nodding her approval at her slate-grey counterpart.

With final burst of strength, Bernie grunted and pulled at the cart with all her might. She felt it begin to shift, and she called frantically for someone to reach under and tug the boy free. The humans in the crowd hesitated, each of them thinking, perhaps, of becoming trapped under there themselves if Bernie and her helpers’ grip on the cart slipped. But before Bernie could demand help again she saw the boy’s daemon surge forward to grab him by the foot with her wolf jaws and drag him out to lie gasping and weeping on the road.

Bernie let the cart fall and dropped to her knees at once to assess the boy’s injuries. She could hear Luna behind her congratulating the other daemon, assuring her she’d done the right thing, that she’d been heroic and brave. With a quick shake of her head, she tuned out all sound and began to examine the shattered leg. With a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach, she saw at once that there was no saving it. The damage was much too severe to treat, and she knew that the surgeons at the hospital would be able to do nothing but amputate. The only thing she could do was keep him alive long enough to reach the hospital, for a piece of shattered bone had nicked an artery and he was bleeding freely, becoming paler and paler with each second that passed.

Bernie reached up to her hair and tugged her new headscarf loose, looping it tightly around his leg just above the knee. Her makeshift tourniquet having staunched the bleeding quite effectively, she grabbed his ruined lower leg and raised it up, elevating the site of the wound above the boy’s heart. “You’re going to be all right,” she insisted through gritted teeth. “Just hold on.”

After a few minutes that felt like days, medics from the hospital arrived with a stretcher to take the boy away. Bernie relinquished her patient gladly, accepting their congratulations for her quick thinking with a tight nod. “It’s what I’ve trained for,” she said simply.

As soon as he was gone, his daemon trotting along beside him, a wave of delayed exhaustion hit Bernie like a slap in the face. She slumped to her hands and knees on the ground, breathing hard, until she felt friendly hands reaching to help her up and bring her a chair. It was Dr Amari’s cousin, the cafe owner, who insisted she have some more chocolatl and baklava - “On the house, for the hero of the hour,” he cried - while she got her strength back.

“He’ll lose that leg,” she murmured, almost to herself, as if to contradict the admiration of the still milling crowd and the smiling face of the cafe owner. 

“But he’ll live,” Luna replied firmly, and Bernie had to screw her eyes shut before the tears could come.

* * *

Dr Amari was far from impressed by her heroics the next day when he came to remove her stitches. Indeed, it turned out she’d torn the wound and required another week in hospital, but at last the day of her discharge came and she found herself packing up her few belongings with a lighter heart than she’d boasted since the accident. Luna had been coming on in leaps and bounds and was now able to maintain a good pace using a peculiar hopping gait. She was able to keep it up for quite a long time without needing to stop for rest. The boy she’d saved had visited several times, his daemon still in the form of a wolf. He’d been profoundly grateful for her help, shaming the part of her that looked at his amputated leg as some kind of personal failure. She’d had a few visitors from the marketplace as well, including the silk scarf salesman -  it turned out he was the injured boy’s uncle - who had brought her a whole collection of scarves in myriad rainbow colours to take home with her.

Not that she was going home yet. She had booked herself - with only a little trepidation - onto the evening zeppelin to Kandahar, where she hoped to join up again with her regiment. She’d sent word to her commanding officer a few days ago to expect her imminently, and she was more than ready to get back to her life.

“Dr Wolfe,” came Dr Amari’s familiar voice, startling her from her reverie. She shook herself and continued stuffing the last of the silk scarves into a kit bag, turning her head briefly to acknowledge him.

“Dr Amari,” she said warmly. “Come to make sure I actually go?”

There was no immediate reply except for a slight quivering of the magpie daemon’s wings. She knew the man well enough by now to read his moods, and she understood that discomfort was first expressed in him by his daemon fidgeting and fluttering. Frowning, Bernie turned round fully and was met with the sight of Dr Amari and another man she knew all too well. Her eyes widened and she snapped to attention at once.

“Colonel Anstruther,” she said, her voice tight. “Sir.”

The colonel - a bear of a man with a perpetually grim expression and a walrus moustache - swept into the room, his black panther daemon following close behind. He seemed to dismiss Amari without a second thought, settling into a visitor’s chair with an air of studied nonchalance that was belied only by the restless prowling of the panther.

“At ease, Major,” he said gruffly once Amari had gone. Bernie moved into the proscribed position, though she felt as far from at ease as it was possible to be.

“I didn’t expect to see you until I returned to Kandahar,” she began, her spine as stiff and straight as a board. Beside her Luna was sitting upright, her ears cocked as she watched the slowly prowling panther, whose name was Ratrya.

Colonel Anstruther pursed his lips for a moment before answering. “You’re not going back to Kandahar,” he said bluntly. “Medical discharge.”

Only years of strict discipline and control kept Bernie on her feet. It was like every word was a blow, and she struggled to think or breathe.

“W-What?” she stammered blankly. “I don’t think I understood you, Colonel.”

“You understood me very well,” he replied, his eyes narrowing. “You’re out, Wolfe. Surplus to requirements.”

Her heart thundered and her mind raced. “But...sir, I can still do my job. I can still save lives. I can still be useful.”

“Indeed you can,” the colonel agreed. “In England. In a civilian hospital.”

“But-” she immediately began to argue, but Ratrya’s voice cut her off.

“Can you stand for twelve hours without a break to perform surgery on a wounded comrade?”

“Yes,” Bernie ground out, her jaw set.

“Can you maintain the required level of fitness, including the mandatory assault courses and tests?”

“Yes,” Bernie insisted, refusing to allow any doubts to be revealed on her face.

The panther stopped pacing and sat in front of Luna, addressing the next question to her. “And if your base is under attack, can you move your patients quickly to safety? As quickly as any other medic in the regiment?”

Luna glared at Ratrya, eyes sparking with impotent fury. She seemed to be waging some great internal war, but eventually she could do nothing but tell the truth. “No,” she spat at last and looked away, fixing her eyes on a spot in the middle distance. Bernie felt the fight leave her almost at once and she staggered back, reaching out to steady herself on the frame of the bed.

Colonel Anstruther had the grace to look sympathetic. “I don’t like to do this, Wolfe,” he said. “You’re a good officer. A damn good surgeon. But we have to face facts. This…” He gestured vaguely at Luna, whose fur was bristling. “Your situation. It changes everything.”

Her face pale, Bernie swallowed the next words that formed in her throat. She was still a member of His Majesty’s Armed Forces, and the language she’d been seconds away from unleashing on her commanding officer would certainly have been a court martial offence.

And it wasn’t just her career she was losing. She thought again of the enemy she’d been tailing when she came to Damascus, how she’d entertained wild conspiracy theories in the days after the accident that perhaps the zeppelin had been sabotaged because of her, that she was the target. Even when it had been established that the explosion was caused by a faulty gas valve, some part of her still hadn’t believed it. Now it seemed the enemy had managed to remove her from the board without even killing her. How pathetic. What a sad end to her part in what she considered to be the most vital work of their times.

Anstruther leaned forward, his daemon moving to take up a post by the door. “Now. That’s what the Army sent me here to tell you. But I have another reason for visiting.” He glanced at the door, as if to make sure no-one had sneaked up on them while he’d been speaking, though of course his daemon would have warned him. “Now this is against protocol, Major. But the fact is, Oakley Street want you back in England.”

For what felt like an age, Bernie couldn’t speak. Her mouth dropped open several times, only to snap shut again when it became obvious she had no idea what to say. Colonel Anstruther, an Oakley Street operative? It was more than just a breach of protocol to have revealed that - it was a confidence that was close to madness in this world of traitors and spies, where no-one was ever quite what they seemed.

“I see you’re shocked,” Anstruther continued, understating the case quite severely. “It’s most irregular to reveal myself like this, of course, but I felt you deserved to know. The fact is, Berenice, you’re too noticeable for field work.” He took off his cap and ran his hand across his greying, close-cropped hair with a deep sigh. “You’re a good operative, but you have to admit that your daemon has always been your Achilles heel. She’s memorable - for her sex, her looks…” He gestured towards Luna. “And now for her injury. I’m sorry. You’ve become too dangerous for the field.”

Bernie stood rigidly for a long moment before sinking onto the bed, her head falling into her hands. She drew a series of deep breaths in through her nose, fighting against the urge to cry, to scream, to rail against anything and everything in sight. “I’ve lost everything,” she muttered, almost to herself. Luna shrank away, collapsing onto the floor and curling into a ball as if to protect herself from a blow.

The colonel stood up and crossed to her side, placing a meaty hand on her shoulder. “Your life still has purpose,” he said gently. “This is a hard moment, there’s no denying it. But you have not lost everything.”

He produced a card from his pocket and offered it to her. “This is a friend of mine,” he explained. “He’ll be expecting you early next week to take up a position on one of his wards.”

She took the card with slightly shaking hands and blearily read the few words printed on it.

_Henrik Hanssen_  
_Chief of Surgeons_  
_St Luke’s Hospital_  
_Bristol_

She could feel a slightly raised detail on the card, and realised that it was an embossed representation of the man’s daemon - a raven. Numbly, she flipped the card over and found a series of handwritten locations on the back. She recognised them as places in Bristol - a few famous-ish landmarks, but mostly ordinary, out of the way places, and she blinked slowly in confusion.

“Visit these locations once a week,” Anstruther said quietly. “If we have instructions for you, you’ll find them concealed inside one of these.” He pulled a carved wooden acorn from his pocket and handed it to her. She stared at it dumbly, then up at him, her eyes still glazed with tears.

“Twist the top off,” Ratrya said from the doorway. “But it turns clockwise.”

Still unable to speak, Bernie did as she was told. It felt strange to be twisting the wooden carving the wrong way, and her fingers felt heavy and clumsy as she did so, but eventually the cap came away and she found herself looking into a tiny space, just large enough for a small message to be concealed.

“I don’t understand,” she murmured. Her tongue felt thick and wooly in her mouth. “Aren’t I being retired?”

Anstruther squeezed her shoulder again. “You’re not an active operative,” he conceded. “But you can consider yourself on reserve. Maintain readiness. And remember…” He paused, waiting for her to look up and meet his eyes. “The enemy is everywhere.”

He stayed for another half hour or so, catching her up on the regiment she wouldn’t be serving with anymore and the soldiers and medics she’d never see again. He had brought some letters from them, which Bernie stuffed into her kit bag unread. At last, Anstruther and his daemon made to leave, explaining that they had to head to the aerodock to catch the evening zeppelin back to Kandahar - the zeppelin Bernie herself was supposed to be on.

She sat in her hospital room for a long time after he left, silent and unmoving, her mind trying desperately to catch up to the calamity of what had just happened to her. It was too much; too large a thing to take in all at once, so she tried to examine it in pieces. Anstruther had taken the acorn with him, but she found herself staring at Hanssen’s card, running her fingers over the embossed edges, tracing the surprisingly detailed face and wings of the raven.

“I’m sorry,” Luna said miserably, breaking the heavy silence. They were her first words in what felt like hours.

Bernie blinked. “Why?” she asked, frowning.

“You heard him,” Luna replied. “I’m your Achilles heel. If it weren’t for me…”

Bernie’s shoulders straightened. “Come here,” she instructed, holding out her hand. After a tiny hesitation, Luna struggled to her feet and walked towards her, her curious hopping gait more noticeable then ever.

“You’re not my weakness,” Bernie said fiercely, sinking her fingers into the soft fur at the scruff of Luna’s neck. The wolf whined slightly, ducking her head at Bernie’s touch. “You’re my strength,” Bernie went on, stroking Luna’s neck over and over until she felt herself begin to calm and knew that her daemon’s mind was a little less troubled. “You’ve always been my strength. Never doubt that.”

Luna pushed her head against Bernie’s hand, nuzzling gently. “What do we do now?” she whispered.

A soft sigh escaped Bernie’s slightly parted lips. She looked down at the card in her hand and shrugged one shoulder. “We go to Bristol,” she said simply.

There was, after all, nowhere else for them to go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're meeting Serena soon, I promise :-)
> 
> If you haven't read _La Belle Sauvage_ , Oakley Street is a secret underground organisation that works against the powers of the Church and its various branches, particularly the fascist Consistorial Court of Discipline.


	3. Control

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Serena Campbell goes to work after a fitful night and strange dreams that suggest a loss of control. She doesn't understand where these feelings have come from but, as her day progresses, will they turn out to have been prophetic?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With thanks to Professor Flimflam, the fictional medic daemon whisperer, who has a knack for picking out the perfect animal companions for the supporting cast.

The morning was cold but crisp and Serena Campbell had decided to walk to work through the park. It was a longer way, and she didn’t always have time, but this morning she’d woken early from a fitful sleep and felt the need to centre herself before launching into her day. Her dreams had been confused and disjointed, and part of her was still trying to tease out a meaning as she trod the leaf-strewn paths that would lead her eventually to St Luke’s hospital and her ward - her very own ward.

It had taken years - decades, in fact - but she’d finally been recognised as competent enough to lead, rather than just take orders from more senior surgeons. She had spent years bristling under one superior after another, knowing she could run rings round them in theatre but being passed over for promotion time after time. Female surgeons were rare, and female surgeons with any kind of responsibility were even rarer. She’d had to work twice as hard throughout her career for half the recognition. Her ward, which she’d been running for six months now, had quickly become the best in the hospital, with more patients being cured or operated on successfully than any other ward. Ric Griffin had been insufferable at first, his ego unable to accept being beaten by a woman. Serena would be lying if she said she wasn’t a little pleased about taking him down a peg or two. She’d worked under him when she first arrived at St Luke’s and, although their relationship was far more cordial these days, he had been openly hostile to working with a woman in the beginning.

“Female surgeons,” he’d said, like he was discussing some foreign species, “are more trouble than they’re worth.”

Well, she’d shown him, and Guy Self and Michael Spence, and all the other men who’d underestimated her over the years. Indeed, the only male colleague who didn’t seem in some way threatened by her was the Chief of Surgeons, Henrik Hanssen, who’d been the one to promote her not long after taking up his position. “I can’t imagine why you’ve been overlooked until now,” he’d said, seemingly genuinely. Serena had raised an eyebrow but said nothing, content to let her actions as clinical lead speak for her. And they had.

“What do you think it meant?” she asked her daemon as she walked, her mind still preoccupied with her dream. 

Barnabas, a tawny owl, was perched on her shoulder, feathers ruffled against the morning chill, his eyes half lidded. “I have no idea,” he replied. “That you need to go to the dentist?”

Serena rolled her eyes and scoffed. “Don’t be so literal,” she chided. “Didn’t we read something about dream analysis not so long ago? In that journal...what was it called again…”

Barnabas shook himself roughly, hopping from one foot to the other. “The Journal of Pseudoscholarly Poppycock?” he suggested.

With a tut, Serena kicked at a convenient pile of leaves. “I don’t know why I talk to you this early in the morning,” she huffed.

“Neither do I,” her daemon replied. “You’d think after fifty years you’d have learned.”

“You’d think,” Serena agreed. “But really, what do you think it means?”

Barnabas let out a small sound that was a cross between and cough and a hoot. “Dreaming about your teeth falling out suggests a subconscious feeling of not being in control,” he offered. “According the the Journal of Pseudoscholarly Poppycock, anyway.”

“Hmm,” Serena hummed, not convinced. “But I feel completely in control,” she said. “I  _ am  _ completely in control.” Her voice was insistent, though in her heart she knew she wasn’t being entirely truthful. The dream had made her feel uneasy, like she was walking on ever-shifting sands.

“You realise that trying to convince me of that is an exercise in futility, right? I feel everything you feel.”

Serena’s hands flew to her breast in mock astonishment. “Really? I had no idea! I thought you were just a magic talking owl!”

Barnabas flapped his wings and leapt off Serena’s shoulder, flying a little way in front of her before turning to circle round her head as she walked. “Oh, but I am!” he teased. “A fairy found me as a chick and granted me the power of speech in exchange for my help capturing the heir to the McKinnie fortune. But when I met you I just couldn’t go through with it, so I decided to betray the fairy and stay with you forever.”

Serena laughed, her eyes following her daemon’s flight path. “And what did a fairy want with the McKinnie family fortune, such as it is?”

Barnabas hooted gleefully. “Ah, the evils of commerce have found their way even to the fairy kingdoms, I’m afraid. She needed money to buy fairy dust and slivers of moonlight for her clan. Lord knows the state they’re in now, after I didn’t go back.”

Her strange dreams forgotten for the moment, Serena smiled and enjoyed listening to the ever more outlandish tales of Barnabas’s fictitious adventures. This was a game they’d played since they were children, and even now they returned to old favourites from time to time. Barnabas’s ability to think of new adventures off the top of his head never failed to cheer Serena up, whether she was a little unsettled from a bad dream, or dealing with the fallout from yet another of her late husband’s extra-marital affairs.

She’d met Edward Campbell when she was twenty-two, at one of her mother’s parties that she’d been forced to attend. She’d been preparing to sit her final medical exams and she’d tried begging off, but that excuse had got her precisely nowhere with Adrienne McKinnie. Any number of important figures from the world of politics or the Church were due to be there, and the presence of Adrienne’s only child was non-negotiable.

It was while she was skulking in a corner, trying mentally to judge exactly when she could get away with leaving, that Edward Campbell had found her and charmed her. She’d had cause to regret falling for that charm many times over the years. Other than her daughter, Elinor, Edward Campbell had brought her nothing but grief and pain during their married life. When he wasn’t drinking in various local inns, he was committing adultery with all and sundry: either with women who were taken in by his charm just as she had been, or with those who were paid for their time. 

Then the Great Flood of ‘86 had come. Edward had been away from home and had claimed to be working, though he’d refused to say where. Serena had assumed that he’d waited out the flood in some other woman’s bed, so it had come as a genuine surprise when a pair of quiet men in dark suits had arrived at her door to inform her that her husband had been lost in the service of the Magisterium, and that Edward had been a hero and a martyr. 

“A  _ hero?” _ she’d repeated, and the men had taken her tone of incredulous surprise for pride.

“No more daydreaming now,” Barnabas said, startling her out of her reverie as he landed on her shoulder. “We’re nearly there.” And indeed, the hospital was looming up before her. She pushed all other thoughts away. Her day was about to begin.

“Good morning everyone!” Serena called cheerfully as she stepped onto the ward a few minutes later, gratified when all of her staff looked up and snapped to attention.

“Good morning Dr Campbell,” said Nurse Jackson, giving the patient she’d been talking to one last pat on the arm before heading over to her boss. Her jackdaw daemon was perched on her shoulder. “It’s been a quiet night by all accounts. Miss Peabody’s wound is healing nicely and I think she might be ready to go today, if you agree. Oh, and Mr Brown is asking to speak to you about another symptom he developed in the night. We have four beds free and a full complement of staff.” She finished her report with a smile. “Looks like it’s going to be a good day.”

Serena smiled in return. “I certainly hope you haven’t just jinxed us, Nurse Jackson.”

After stripping off her coat and scarf, Serena made her way across to Miss Peabody’s bed. The old lady had come in for a routine check after a fall at home and had been most perturbed when Serena had informed her that she’d damaged her hip. She’d been very resistant to surgery and Serena had had to spend almost an hour patiently explaining that there wasn’t really any choice - not if she wanted to walk again. Miss Peabody hadn’t been at all happy and even now her daemon - a black and white cat - spat and hissed at Serena every time she passed.

“Now, Nurse Jackson tells me you’re healing nicely,” Serena began, pulling on a pair of synthetic gloves before peeling off the dressing and examining the surgical incision for herself.

Miss Peabody huffed and her daemon hissed. “There was nothing wrong with me,” she insisted for the ten or twelfth time. “Bloody butchers, cutting people open. I should have just stayed at home and got old Jim to make me up one of his poultices. But no, I had to listen to my daughter.  _ Go to the hospital, mum,  _ she said.  _ The surgeons know what they’re doing,  _ she said. Piffle! I tell you, I’ve a good mind to complain about you!”

Serena just smiled and nodded, casting a practiced eye over the wound and judging it to be sufficiently healed to discharge the cantankerous old biddy. “You can address any concerns to the Chief of Surgeons. His name is Henrik Hanssen. Would you like me to get him for you?”

Miss Peabody turned a deep shade of red that reminded Serena of a sunset she’d seen once in New Denmark. She smiled at the patient once more, then pulled off the gloves. “I’m happy for you to be discharged today.”

“What does that mean?” Miss Peabody asked, grumbling under her breath about jargon and patronising doctors with their big words.

Serena’s smile felt brittle and painted on. She took a deep breath, relieved beyond words that this particular patient wouldn’t be their guest for much longer. “It means you get to go home,” she said. 

“To the great joy of everyone involved,” Barnabas added under his breath, for Serena’s ears only.

Miss Peabody’s daemon had been eyeing Barnabas like he was planning to take a swipe at him, but he immediately stopped hissing and jumped into the old woman’s lap. He nudged his head against her hands and purred. “Home,” he rumbled. “At last!”

Serena nodded, then looked over her shoulder when she heard the door to the ward swing open. “Ah, here’s Mr Hanssen now,” she said. “Shall I call him over?”

“Hmm?” Miss Peabody said, looking up from her lap with a much changed expression. “Oh. No. No, my dear. I think I’ll leave things be.” She straightened her shoulders, seeming to get a little of her old colour back. “No changing the past, is there?”

Serena inclined her head. “Indeed there isn’t, Miss Peabody,” she agreed, and took her leave. She scribbled a few lines onto the old woman’s notes and then nodded to Donna that she could begin the discharge procedure. That done, she headed over to Hanssen who was waiting for her by the nurses’ station with a severe look on his face.

“Good morning, Mr Hanssen,” Serena said primly. “To what do we owe this very special pleasure?”

The raven on Hanssen’s shoulder fixed Barnabas with a beady-eyed stare. Serena felt a little chill ghost down her spine, though she wasn’t sure why. Suddenly she remembered her dream again, and the strange feelings it had stirred up when she woke.

“I’d like us to go for a little walk together,” Hanssen said. “I have some exciting news.”

Serena’s eyes narrowed. “Exciting for the hospital or for my ward specifically?”

Hanssen nodded his head briefly in acknowledgement. “Both,” he said.

Sighing, Serena glanced around until she found her second in command, Dominic. “You’re in charge, Dr Copeland,” she called out, then turned back to Hanssen after receiving a nod of acknowledgement. “Let’s get it over with then.”

He held out a hand, gesturing for her to precede him. Barnabas made a sarcastic little half bow, spreading out his wings and ducking his head before settling himself on Serena’s shoulder. She thought about chastising him, but decided to leave it. Hanssen could take a bit of her daemon’s attitude. 

“Oh, Dr Copeland,” she called back over her shoulder. “Mr Brown wanted to discuss another symptom, take care of it would you?” She smirked at the horrified look that crossed Dominic’s face, and turned away just as his mink daemon scuttled up his arm to wrap herself protectively round his neck like a scarf.

She walked with Hanssen a little way down the corridor in silence, waiting for him to explain the reason for his mysterious visit. When he showed no sign of wanting to begin the conversation, she narrowed her eyes in annoyance. “I’m anticipating a busy day,” she said pointedly.

Hanssen produced a thin smile. “I’d just like us to have a little walk through the grounds while we chat,” he said. “I shan’t detain you too long.”

“The grounds?” Serena replied, frowning. “What’s wrong with your office?”

Hanssen inclined his head. “I have someone for you to meet. She hasn’t been in England for some time, and the season is proving to be most agreeable to her. I offered to conduct the meeting outdoors so she could continue to enjoy it.”

Serena opened her mouth, then snapped it closed again, unsure exactly what she could say to that. It was most irregular, but Hanssen was her boss and he could do what he liked. She held her tongue.

As they arrived at the hospital entrance, Serena became aware of some sort of commotion. She lengthened her stride, speeding up until she could make out a small clump of men remonstrating with a junior surgeon she vaguely knew. He was trying to calm them down, nervously stammering and pushing his glasses up his nose every few seconds.

“What’s going on here?” Serena demanded, her tone clipped and broadcasting loud and clear to anyone listening that she wasn’t a woman to be trifled with.

The junior surgeon - Arthur Digby, she thought was his name - seemed to sag in relief at her approach. “Dr Campbell,” he said. “I was just explaining to these men that we need to examine our patients before we give out medicines.”

Serena raised an eyebrow and turned to the trio of men who were holding flat caps in their hands and treading anxiously from foot to foot. With a slight start she recognised them as gyptians, probably from the small community that had appeared in the town a few weeks ago via the river Avon for the autumn fair. It was rare to see them so far from the river, and rarer still to find them in a landloper hospital. They tended to place their faith in their own medicines and physicians.

“Dr Digby is quite right,” she said, relieved when Arthur brightened. It seemed she had indeed successfully remembered his name. “We can’t hand out medicines if we don’t know whether they’ll help or hurt the patient.”

“We can pay,” said the leader stubbornly, holding out a purse of jangling coins. “Our coin’s as good as any of yours, en’t it?”

“Certainly it is,” Serena replied smoothly. “But the fact remains that we must examine the patient before we can do anything.” She looked from the leader to his mates in slight confusion. “None of you seem ill.”

The youngest of the gyptians stepped forward, wringing his cap between his hands. “Beggin’ your pardon, doctor,” he began. “It en’t one of us. It’s my uncle, see? He en’t been right...well, he en’t never been right really, least not so long as I’ve known him. But these last few weeks he’s been worse than ever, and now I’m proper afeared for him.” He ducked his head. “I’d be right grateful if you could help him somehow.”

Serena’s face softened and she reached out to rest her hand on his arm. “I’d be glad to,” she said. “Can you bring him here?”

The young man shook his head. “He can’t leave his boat,” he said. “His daemon, see - she’s a fish. A trout. He en’t never left his boat in forty years.”

Serena arched one perfectly sculpted eyebrow. She’d heard of daemons settling as fish or dolphins but had never actually met anyone like that. It was incredibly rare, given the restrictions that people with such daemons inevitably faced, and a lonely life too, she thought. She couldn’t imagine not being able to speak to Barnabas. She wondered what it was like for this young man’s uncle, trapped almost in another world from the other half of himself. It would be enough to make anyone ill.

“I see,” she said, nodding in understanding and compassion. “Well, we’ll just have to come to you then, won’t we.” She addressed herself to the leader. “You have some sort of transport with you?”

The man blinked. “We’ve got a horse and cart,” he said.

“Excellent!” Serena smiled warmly. “Then we’d best be off, hadn’t we?” She turned to Arthur and clapped him on the back. “You can come with me Dr Digby, since you don’t seem to be doing much.” Arthur’s eyes widened and his mole-formed daemon poked her head out of the breast pocket where she’d been hiding to squeak in alarm, but Serena didn’t give him a chance to object. “Right,” she continued, then suddenly seemed to remember Hanssen. “Ah. I’m afraid I’ll have to postpone our little jaunt through the grounds. Duty calls!”

His daemon, Ketselem, ruffled her feathers and squawked softly in disapproval. Hanssen’s lips hardened into a thin line. “I expect you to meet me in the southern gardens the moment you return,” he instructed.

“Certainly.” She turned to the gyptian men and gestured towards the entrance. “Lead the way.”

The horses had been roughly hitched to a railing outside. The cart had room for two people to sit in the driver’s position. The gyptian leader nodded roughly to his fellows and Arthur to hop into the back while he sorted out the reins and then clambered aboard, holding out his hand to allow Serena to climb up rather more primly than he had managed. “Thank you kindly,” she said.

The gyptian grunted in response. “Name’s Berkenbosch; Willem Berkenbosch,” he said when they were underway. 

“Serena Campbell,” she replied. “Delighted to meet you.”

His face suggested he doubted very much that she was being truthful, but he didn’t press the issue. “That there’s my lad Jan, and the fella who spoke to you back at the hospital is my wife’s cousin, Markus van Beek.” He nodded in the direction of the two younger men in the back of the cart, who seemed to be having a good time chatting with Arthur. Dr Digby himself seemed less enthusiastic, his face growing ever more green as the cart clunked over cobbles and potholes.

“All right there Dr Digby?” Serena called over her shoulder.

“Motion sickness,” the young doctor explained. 

One of the young gyptians - Jan - produced a bottle from his pocket. “Ah, have a nip of this young fella. It’ll sort you out.”

Gingerly, Arthur took a sip of the clear liquid Jan Berkenbosch had offered. His eyes bugged out of their sockets at the strength of it and he struggled not to immediately spit it out. His two companions burst out laughing and clapped him on the back. 

Serena laughed along with them. “If that’s what I think it is, I wouldn’t suggest having any more,” she said. “You want to be in a fit state to help me examine this man when we get there.”

Mr Berkenbosch clicked at the horses and urged them into a trot. His daemon, a fine and proud looking hawk, spread her wings and took to the air, flying a little way above and ahead of them. Barnabas rubbed his face against Serena’s cheek for a brief moment and then followed the hawk, keeping pace with her easily in the calm morning air.

Serena watched the two daemons fly together, racing a little, swooping and diving then rising again in obvious delight. “I do envy them sometimes, don’t you?” she confided, leaning a little closer to Mr Berkenbosch. “How wonderful it must feel to be so free.”

Willem Berkenbosch grunted again, but he glanced at Serena with a new kind of consideration out of the corner of his eye. “Not many landlopers would go to trouble to help one of our folk,” he commented. His voice was neutral, but she could hear a tinge of bitterness underneath. She couldn’t blame him. It was certainly true that non-gyptian society held a rather dim view of the water-dwelling nomads who came and went as they pleased. Serena remembered the tales she’d grown up with, about gyptians stealing and eating children, how they’d sneak off their boats in the night and creep into towns to look for children out of bed after dark to kidnap and cook for dinner. Just stories to help parents get their kids back indoors on time in the evenings of course, but gyptians were often the shadowy antagonists in such tales and many people harboured a suspicion of them into adulthood, if not outright hostility.

Serena shook her head. “Everyone deserves to be taken care of,” she said, then took a deep lungful of the clean, autumn air. “When I was younger,” she began, “just after I’d qualified, I met a patient I’ve never forgotten. His name was Evert Jansen, and he’d been brought into the ward where I was working with a knife wound in his gut. The senior surgeon told me to send him away. Said  _ let him go and die on his boat where he belongs.”  _ Her expression hardened at the memory. “But I’m not in the business of letting people die if I can save them.”

There was silence for a few moments, and then Willem Berkenbosch half turned towards her, taking his eye off the road briefly. “Well?” he said.  _ “Did  _ you save him?”

Serena looked at him and smiled. It was her first truly genuine smile of the day: not a social nicety or a mask she needed to wear to get round a tricky patient. It was a slow smile of deep contentment and pride, and it transformed her entire face. Always beautiful, now she was radiant, her face shining with a fierce joy.

“Yes,” she said. “I did.”

* * *

Several hours passed before she was able to return to the hospital to find out who Hanssen had wanted her to meet. The elder Mr van Beek had turned out to be a rather wretched creature: thin and wasting away, living in his own filth and the detritus of what seemed to be a deeply unhappy life. His only sustenance appeared to come from the several bottles of the gyptian spirit jenniver that he consumed each day. It hadn’t taken Serena long to diagnose him. The yellow tinge to his skin and the whites of his eyes spoke of a severe and chronic liver complaint, and she’d had to insist that the man be brought to the hospital for treatment. It had taken time to convince the gyptians, many of whom were openly distrustful and uneasy about sending the man to a landloper hospital. In the end Willem Berkenbosch, who appeared to be the leader of the whole group, had put his foot down and insisted that he go.

“I’m trusting you, Serena Campbell,” he’d said. “I hope you don’t give me cause to regret it.”

Serena had nodded in understanding. “I’ll do everything in my power. As long as you understand that he may be too far gone. I’ll know more when I see how he responds to the treatment.”

With that agreed, Arthur had been dispatched with Jan Berkenbosch and Markus van Beek to find an aquarium that could sell them a tank in which to transport the sick man’s daemon to hospital, and a further delay had occurred when someone with an otter daemon had to be sent for to actually retrieve the trout from the water. But at last the patient had been loaded onto the cart and returned to the hospital. Serena had sat up front with Mr Berkenbosch again, while Arthur stayed with the patient in the back of the cart, holding tightly onto the tank that contained the trout daemon and trying not to let any of the river water spill.

“Start Mr van Beek on intravenous fluids please, Nurse Jackson,” Serena said after the man had been helped into a bed. “I have to go and catch up with Hanssen at last.”

She found him in the southern gardens, just as she’d been told. He was sitting on a bench facing away from the hospital, deep in conversation with a figure that Serena couldn’t quite see. She approached quietly, her feet making no sound on the soft grass. Gradually, snippets of the conversation began to float over to her on the wind.

“...running very smoothly…”

“...think you’ll be quite happy…”

“...Dr Campbell…”

“...equal status of course…”

The feeling from the morning was back, that strange sense of freefall, the premonition that she couldn’t quite rely on the ground beneath her feet. Her stomach clenched into a knot of dread. Equal status? He was talking to this woman about  _ her _ ward. Was he bringing in another surgeon? Did he not think she was up to running the ward on her own? What other explanation could there be?

Not looking where she was going she stepped on a twig, wincing as it crunched beneath her feet. Its snap felt preternaturally loud and Hanssen stopped speaking at once, turning to face her with a small, tight smile. Barnabas leapt off Serena’s shoulder and flapped away, as far from Hanssen as his link with Serena would allow. “You wanted me to meet someone, Mr Hanssen?” she asked. Her voice sounded almost normal, but her heart was racing.

Hanssen nodded and gestured towards the woman on the bench beside him. Serena had moved closer now and she could see that the woman was around her own age, with a shock of messy blonde hair. But it was her daemon that drew Serena’s attention - a great Arctic wolf, bigger and more beautiful than any true wolf. With a little shock of recognition, Serena realised that she knew this daemon. She knew this woman.

“Bernie?” Serena murmured. “Bernie Wolfe?”

Bernie stood and turned towards her, an expression of surprise crossing her face. “Oh!” she exclaimed. “Serena McKinnie? I didn’t know it was you…”

“Got married. Changed my name,” Serena managed to reply.

“Oh. Well...congratulations.”

Serena barked out a mirthless laugh. “I’ve actually been widowed for three years.”

Bernie’s face paled and she began wringing her hands. “Oh, uhm...I’m very sorry to hear that.”

Serena shrugged. “Don’t be,” she said, then clenched her teeth. “Why are you here?”

Bernie opened her mouth to speak, but Hanssen stepped between them. “I’ve brought Dr Wolfe here to work on your ward,” he said.

Serena swallowed the words she’d been about to unleash. “I see,” she said instead, a muscle clenching in her jaw. “As my subordinate?’

He shook his head. “As your equal.”

Serena bit back a scream of frustration, but Barnabas was not so reserved. Somewhere in the sky above them he screeched out his annoyance, startling Luna and Ketselem who looked up and tracked his flight through the air.

An awkward silence fell. Hanssen looked hesitantly from Serena to Bernie and back again, his tongue coming out to wet his thin lips. Ketselem ruffled her feathers and then took off, flapping into the air and flying a few feet away, as if urging Hanssen to follow her. “Well,” he said. “You two seem to know each other. I think I’ll leave you to get reacquainted.”

Serena stared at Bernie after he’d left, not quite sure what to say or how to feel. She and Bernie had known each other at Oxford. It would have been impossible not to, being two of only five women in their class of over a hundred undergraduate medics. They had never been close friends and hadn’t kept track of each other in their later careers, but there had always been a quiet respect between them. Truthfully Serena had always wanted to work with her, feeling that their skills were a good match in the few times they’d been paired up for assignments while at university. But like this...with full control of the ward she’d worked so hard for being suddenly ripped away...

“Well,” Bernie began, then trailed off. It seemed she was as unsure of what to say as Serena herself.

“Well,” Serena repeated, casting about for how to begin. She looked Bernie up and down, taking in the tanned skin and the lean muscles. Now that she thought about it, hadn’t someone told her that Bernie had become an army surgeon? A hard life, for a woman. Even harder than Serena’s attempts to rise through the ranks in civilian hospitals, she thought. “Gosh. It’s...it’s good to see you again. You look…”

But she trailed off before she could complete the sentence because she had just let her eyes drift to Bernie’s daemon and taken her in properly for the first time.

Bernie followed the line of her gaze and smirked. “Ah,” she muttered sardonically. “I see you’ve noticed.”

Barnabas swooped back down from where he’d been sulking, landing on the ground in front of Luna. The wolf ducked her head to greet him, but her posture was stiff and her eyes were flinty and hard.

“I can see you’ve got questions,” Bernie sighed, then gestured towards the bench. “Shall we at least be comfortable while we talk?”

Dumbly, Serena nodded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gyptians are quite important in the first book of the His Dark Materials trilogy. See [here for a bit more about them.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Races_and_creatures_in_His_Dark_Materials#Gyptians)
> 
> The name Ketselem is a reference to another fantasy book series. 10 points to whoever gets it without googling!


	4. An Equal Partnership

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Serena and Bernie come to an understanding and begin to learn how to work together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My wonderful friend [ProfessorFlimflam](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProfessorFlimflam) has made me some art for this chapter. You can see it on [tumblr](http://wonkots42.tumblr.com/post/180511833655/secrets-in-the-dark-chapter-4-wonko-his-dark) in its full glory, but here is a small preview:

Bernie Wolfe had always been an enigma. Reserved, almost shy in many ways, and yet she’d drawn attention wherever she went. She couldn’t help it - her daemon attracted one’s eye, and the fierce intelligence and talent of the woman herself ensured that people were drawn to her. Serena certainly had been, though she’d never been able to crack that perfectly polite but distant exterior. She hadn’t understood at the time, had wondered why Bernie didn’t have friends, why she never let anyone close. She kept everyone at arm’s length, and the quiet fierceness of the wolf at her side ensured no-one tried to force the issue. 

Serena had always found Luna particularly striking, and seeing her now - battered and maimed - made her heart ache. But Bernie’s daemon was no less beautiful for all that time and trauma had wrought, and she was as proud and fierce as ever. Serena knew her sympathy would be viewed as pity. It would not be welcome.

“So,” she said after a long period of excruciatingly awkward silence. “You...you went into the army, didn’t you?”

“Yes.” Bernie was staring at a point somewhere in the middle distance. “Army Medical Corps. Twenty-five years.” She glanced briefly at Serena then away again. “And you got married?”

Serena chuckled ruefully. “Yes. Twenty-five years for me too. For my sins.”

“Ah.” Bernie smiled a tight little smile. “So it wasn’t exactly…” She trailed off, unsure of exactly how to phrase the question, but Serena filled it in for her.

“Wasn’t happy?” She raised an eyebrow. “Well, I think we probably were for a bit. A day or two anyway.”

Silence fell again. Serena stared at her hands, taking an intense interest in her nails and cuticles. She made a mental note to give them a little trim when she got home that night - long nails were a liability for a surgeon, after all. Somewhere in the distance a child laughed and was hushed by its mother. They both swivelled round to look, then turned back in disappointment when the sound proved to be uninteresting. Above them, a bee buzzed drowsily past. 

“Oh I can’t stand this.” 

It was Luna who’d spoken, her voice a low rumble of consternation. Both Bernie and Serena’s eyes widened as the daemon heaved herself to her feet and hopped over to stand in front of them.

“We were in a zeppelin crash,” the wolf began. “The surgeons in Damascus saved Bernie’s life and kept her on her feet. I wasn’t so lucky. As you can see, I’m not all the wolf I used to be.” She tossed her head. “Any questions?”

Serena felt her face get hot as she opened her mouth to reply, but Barnabas beat her to it. “Were you always this prickly?” he said, cocking his head to the side as if in serious consideration.

_ “Prickly?”  _ Luna demanded. Her hackles rose and lip curled, like she was about to unleash a growl.

“Prickly,” Barnabas replied firmly, then leaned forward as if they were gossiping about a childhood secret. “Did you spend a lot of time as a hedgehog when you were young?”

Luna pulled back, brows furrowed in consternation, but before she could think of a reply that would put the impertinent owl in his place, Bernie laughed. She laughed and laughed, bending at the waist, wrapping her arms round her middle as if to try to contain her mirth, but the laughter was too strong to suppress. She laughed until her chest hurt and her eyes streamed. Serena couldn’t help but join in. Bernie’s laugh was extraordinary and infectious, like a honking goose or braying donkey. She’d have found it insufferable from anyone else, she thought, but coming from Bernie Wolfe - serious, talented, determined Bernie Wolfe - it was simply delightful.

“Good Lord, your face!” Bernie wheezed. Luna’s huffed resentfully, her expression and body language conveying outraged dignity. “About time someone stood up to you.” Bernie turned to Serena and leaned slightly towards her, as if about to impart a confidence. “Ever since it happened almost every other daemon we’ve met has been so careful around her. So much pity. I absolutely can’t bear it.”

Luna huffed but didn’t contradict Bernie’s statement, turning in three tight circles before curling into a ball at her human’s feet. Seeing he wasn’t going to get any more entertainment out of the sulking wolf, Barnabas hopped up onto the bench and then settled onto Serena’s lap. She stroked her hand down his back absently, petting the smooth feathers like she would a cat. “That would drive me absolutely up the wall too,” she said. “It sounds like when my husband died. Sympathetic looks. Helpful neighbours with pots of stew. So many bouquets I could have opened my own florist. And meanwhile all I really wanted was to go back to work.”

Bernie eyed her speculatively. “That’s just what I want,” she agreed. “To work. To be useful. Though this...” She looked around, then gestured expansively to take in the gardens, the hospital, the entire city of Bristol itself. “Well, this wasn’t quite what I had in mind.”

Serena bristled slightly. “Well, it’s not an active war zone but we still do good work.”

“I know you do,” Bernie replied, running her fingers through her messy curls. “But I spent twenty-five years serving King and country, and in one moment I lost it all. You never think, do you, when you’re stepping onto a zeppelin that you might be doing something that’ll change your whole life irrevocably. But that’s exactly what happened.”

Serena opened her mouth to reply, then remembered how she’d felt upon seeing Luna, realising that the magnificent daemon she remembered from her youth was so changed, so profoundly damaged. She thought about what it would be like to have that pain and trauma broadcast so obviously to the world, and considered what scars Bernie must be carrying that ran invisibly even deeper than that. A stab of compassion nudged at her heart and she felt herself soften.

“I don’t suppose you do,” she said at last. “And then you end up here - how exactly did that happen, if you don’t mind my asking?”

To her surprise, Bernie laughed. This time it was bitter; nothing like the free, uninhibited mirth of a few short moments ago. “Pity, again,” she said baldly. “My commanding officer came to Damascus personally to give me the news I was being given the heave ho. Surplus to requirements were his actual words, I believe. I suppose I must have looked so bloody miserable he felt obliged to do something. Pulled a few strings with your Mr Hanssen, who’s apparently an old friend of his and…” She held her hands out at her sides. “Voila. Here I am.” She glanced at Serena then looked away again, a dash of guilt colouring her words. “But I can see I’ve taken something from you, haven’t I?”

That was understating the case quite severely. Serena thought of her ward, how hard she’d worked to get it, how much time she’d invested in turning the ragtag little group of misfits she’d been landed with at the start into a proper team: the best team in the hospital. Dominic, who’d seemed at one stage to just be veering from one drama to another, had thrived under a firm yet compassionate hand. He was shaping up to be a damn fine surgeon, and a good man into the bargain. Then there was Donna, hot-tempered and a bit wild - but she cared so much, and worked so hard. She’d never really been praised for the good she did before, but what a difference that made. And there was young Morven Shreve too, who Serena privately thought of as her protege. In her career she had so rarely had a chance to work with other women, let alone mentor them. She had found that she enjoyed it immensely, and Morven was flourishing under her example. It would be a wrench to give even a part of all that up, to loosen her grip and relinquish control.

But she saw the way Bernie was holding herself, the stiffness of her muscles and the tightness of her jaw, and she thought about the calamity that had befallen her and ripped her whole carefully constructed life to shreds. It wasn’t right and it wasn’t fair, and neither was Serena having to give up part of her life, her success - but it was what it was. She could be bitter, she could rail against it and fight and sideline Bernie rather than work with her - but where would that get them? They’d both be miserable and the work would suffer, her little team would suffer, and their patients would suffer. 

“We can draw a veil over all that,” she offered, and Barnabas hopped off her lap and landed by Luna’s side on the ground. He leaned into the wolf daemon and brushed his feathery cheek against hers for just a moment.

Bernie was appalled to find her eyes stinging with sudden tears. She quickly swept them away and coughed, glancing at Serena only when she thought it was safe. “That’s very generous of you,” she managed at last. “Thank-you.”

Serena smiled gently. “Would you like to come and meet the team?” she offered. “And we have some interesting patients in at the moment too. I met a fellow with an aquatic daemon this morning - can you believe it?”

She stood up and brushed some dust off her skirt, holding out her arm for Barnabas to flap up and settle himself on her shoulder. She avoided looking at Bernie until the other woman had fully collected herself and stood up too. They began to make their way back towards the hospital, Luna keeping pace behind them with her loose hopping gait.

“An aquatic daemon?” Bernie said, when she was sure she could trust her voice. “I knew it was possible, but I’ve never actually met anyone like that.” She looked thoughtful for a moment. “Sounds rather sad.”

“That’s just what I thought,” Serena agreed, then inclined her head towards Barnabas. “As obnoxious as he is sometimes, I wouldn’t be without him.”

Barnabas hooted indignantly. “I am  _ not  _ obnoxious,” he insisted. “I am irritating at worst.”

“Definitely irritating,” Luna chimed in, then ducked when Barnabas swooped down off Serena’s shoulder. His talons brushed the top of her head and he squawked a little, but Luna and Bernie could tell there was no real force behind it. Indeed, Bernie couldn’t help but laugh at his antics, and found herself feeling a warm glow of affection for the owl daemon and his human counterpart, as well as a sense of profound gratitude that she’d landed here, with someone she already knew and respected. She wished for a moment that they’d kept in touch, that they’d been better friends at university. She remembered that Serena had tried in the beginning, but Bernie had been so focused, so determined to push headfirst into the world that she hadn’t felt that making friends was that important. She’d believed she could only rely on herself and her own wits and talents, so she’d worked tirelessly to be the best, to rise above the limitations that others placed on her simply because she was a woman. And rise she had, all the way to the rank of Major in His Majesty’s armed forces - the first woman ever to do so in the Medical Corps.

But there was a fundamental truth she’d known ever since she was nine years old and taking her first experimental theology classes at prep school. What goes up must come down. And she had crashed back to earth now and no mistake.

Still, her landing had been softer than it might have been thanks to the kindness of others, like Colonel Anstruther, Mr Hanssen, and now Serena. As her old acquaintance led her towards the ward they now shared, pointing out people and places as she went along, Bernie found herself feeling determined to live up to that kindness; to prove worthy of it.

“And here we are,” Serena said breezily as they stepped through a set of double doors. “My - or I should say  _ our  _ \- little corner of the world.”

Bernie glanced around, taking in the patients in their beds and the doctors and nurses at their work. It was a small ward but she could instantly see that it was well run. It was spotlessly clean, and the few empty beds were ready and waiting for patients with fresh, beautifully pressed linen on each. The staff were performing their tasks with a quiet efficiency of which Bernie approved very much. She nodded, flashing Serena smile. “It seems like a well-oiled machine,” she said, her smile broadening when Serena’s face lit up in response to her compliment.

“Well, it’s not got Army discipline but we try,” she said, then clapped her hands to get her staff’s attention. “Everyone!” she called. “Gather round, if you please. I have some news to share.”

Slowly the staff made their way over, glancing with interest between Serena and the stranger with her wolf daemon. A few pairs of eyes stared at Luna’s forlorn stump, but Serena’s pointed cough quickly drew their attention back to her. “This,” she said, resting her hand on Bernie’s arm, “is Dr Wolfe, an esteemed twenty-five year veteran of the Army Medical Corps. She’s recently retired from active service and we’ve been lucky enough to procure her services here at St Luke’s. She and I are going to be sharing the responsibilities of clinical lead on this ward from now on, and I trust we’ll all make her very welcome.”

There were a few sharp glances, a few whispers and gasps, but a smattering of applause too. Bernie had been in too many sticky situations over the years to blush at being the focus of attention, but her discomfort was betrayed somewhat by Luna moving to stand at her side, as if bracing her against a strong wind.

“Thank you very much, Dr Campbell,” she said when the brief applause had died away. “I’m looking forward to getting to know all. I can see you’re an excellent team. I’m sure we’ll all work well together, for the good of the patients and the hospital.”

She trailed off, unsure what else to say, but Serena saved her with a warm smile and a pat on the back. “Absolutely,” she said, then caught Hanssen’s eye as he walked through the double doors and onto the ward. “Morven,” she said, beckoning over the young woman and her squirrel daemon, Tobias. “Would you be so kind as to show Dr Wolfe around the ward? Introduce her to the patients?”

Morven nodded agreeably. Serena watched them go for a moment and then turned to search for Hanssen again. She found him loitering in the doorway of her office - of her and Bernie’s office now, she supposed. She’d need to get maintenance down to provide another desk and ordinator, and to shift the apostrophe in  _ Clinical Lead’s Office _ to after the  _ s. _

Hanssen was as impassive as ever when she made her way over to him, but Ketselem was fluttering her wings ever so slightly, a sure sign that both man and daemon were uncomfortable.  _ Good,  _ Serena thought to herself. She had dealt with this sudden turn of events with what she thought of as admirable grace and civility - now she wanted answers.

“You couldn’t have warned me, I suppose?” she said, breezing past him and into the office. She sank into her chair wearily, leaning back to look up him as he followed her into the room.

Hanssen closed the office door behind them. “I intended to,” he offered mildly. “Had you not left to treat your gyptian patient, I’d have been able to explain the situation properly. If my inability to sufficiently prepare you has led to any awkwardness, I do apologise.”

Barnabas hooted in mild disgust and fluttered off Serena’s shoulder to rest on the nearest filing cabinet. Serena narrowed her eyes as she read between the lines. She had known Henrik Hanssen for a relatively short period of time, but she had come to understand him fairly well. Everything about the way he was holding himself - the stiffness of his posture, the clenching of his jaw, even the mild twitching of his daemon’s eyes - spoke of a deep and profound regret.

“We know how to share our toys, Mr Hanssen, never fear,” Barnabas said. “I’d ask why she wasn’t assigned to one of the other wards, but I think I know the answer.”

Ketselem fluttered off Hanssen’s shoulder and perched on filing cabinet alongside Barnabas. “Politics,” she spat in her harsh, croaky voice. Serena blinked in surprise. Hanssen’s raven-formed daemon was usually content to be silent.

“The Board of Trustees?” Barnabas guessed. “Still in uproar over a woman being given a position of responsibility, even though she’s more than proved herself?”

“Indeed,” Ketselem replied bitterly. “There are other wards to which Dr Wolfe would have proven a great asset - but I’m afraid attempting to push that through would have been impossible in the current climate.”

Serena sighed deeply and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “And putting her into any of our wards as anything less than a clinical lead would have been an insult to her talents and experience,” she said tiredly. She shook her head briefly, then ran her fingers through her short, silvering hair. “Understood.”

She’d suspected that Hanssen’s decision to promote her had created ruffled feathers. That was one of the reasons she’d worked so hard - to show him and everyone that his confidence had not been misplaced. It wasn’t Bernie’s fault that the Board of Trustees couldn’t countenance the idea of another woman gaining influence at St Luke’s. She could just imagine them now with their starched shirts and walrus moustaches, insisting that Hanssen place the new female surgeon into Serena’s ward with all the other misfits. They probably thought the two of them would be at each other’s throats within a day.

Well, she wouldn’t be giving them that satisfaction. She and Bernie would make this work. They’d learn from each other and continue to make this place better and better. 

Hanssen’s shoulders straightened as he saw the look of determination cross her face. “You are one of the finest surgeons I’ve ever known,” he said seriously. “And the most gracious woman. This is not an indictment of you. If anything, it’s an indictment of those so threatened by talented women that they blind themselves to what would be best for our patients.” 

Charmed and touched in spite of herself, Serena felt a small smile tugging at her lips. “Well…” She coughed slightly to clear her suddenly scratchy throat. “I’m sure she and I will make an excellent team.”

Hanseen inclined his head graciously and Ketselem flapped back over to rest on his shoulder. “I’m certain you will.”

* * *

Serena was busy for the rest of the day with various administrative tasks she’d been putting off, but she found herself watching Bernie through the glass pane of the office door as the other woman familiarised herself with the ward. She was glad to see she was making herself useful, taking on a few small tasks that Serena would ordinarily have had to supervise herself. There was no getting around the fact that there wasn’t enough work on this ward to keep two surgeons of their abilities busy, but there was no helping it either. Serena just hoped her old acquaintance wouldn’t find the pace of life here too dull.

When six o’clock rolled round she collected her coat and scarf and made her way back onto the ward to see if Bernie would like to join the team for their customary drink before heading home. There was an inn just across the road run by a jolly fellow called Albert which had become a favoured spot for the medics from the hospital. Ric Griffin, Guy Self and the other senior surgeons could often be found there indulging in a glass or two of Tokay after their shifts were over. Serena had tried the sweet Hungarian wine in her youth, but found she much preferred a full bodied Syrah instead. It had become so much her tipple of choice that Albert had started opening a bottle every day at five thirty, to let it breathe for her.

She found Bernie sitting by Mr van Beek’s bedside, watching the sleeping man with an inscrutable look on her face. She seemed to be lost in an entirely different world because she started when Serena called her name, then smiled, embarrassed to have been caught daydreaming. “I was just talking to him before he dropped off,” she said quietly, keen not to wake him. “This is the first time he’s seen his daemon since she settled. I can’t imagine, can you?”

Serena shook her head. “No wonder he drinks.”

Bernie nodded in agreement. “Yes. I think he’s deeply unhappy. Can we do much for him, do you think?”

Sighing, Serena watched the sleeping man. “The liver is a resilient organ,” she offered. “If he can stop drinking, perhaps we can help him. But if he just goes back to the way he was living…” She trailed off, shrugging her shoulders helplessly.

Bernie looked away. Silence fell for a moment, and then she seemed to shake something off and looked up at Serena again with a small smile. “Are you off home then?”

Returning the gentle smile with one of her own, Serena shook her head. “It seems a bit odd asking you this now, after what we were discussing, but I actually came over to invite you for a drink. There’s an inn across the road we all go to - I thought it might give you a chance to get to know us all a bit better.”

Her smile widening, Bernie hauled herself out of the chair, her back protesting a little at the sudden movement after a long period of inactivity. “That sounds absolutely delightful,” she said.

But just as they were about to take their leave, the doors to the ward crashed open and a patient was wheeled in. He was moaning in pain, holding onto his wrist which was streaming blood, wailing and cursing and ranting about mangy beasts and negligent owners and how he had a good mind to take someone to court.

“That’s enough of that,” Serena snapped as she crossed to his side, and somehow Bernie wasn’t surprised when he immediately shut up. She rather thought anyone would snap to attention if Serena used that tone on them: it was almost like being back in the army.

Serena immediately launched into a quiet discussion with the mobile medics who’d brought him in. Once she was satisfied with the answers to her questions she nodded briskly, dismissing them, then turned to Bernie. “Bitten by a dog,” she informed her briefly. “Severe damage to the blood supply and the muscles of the forearm. I’m going to take him to theatre - care to join me?”

Bernie hadn’t operated on a human since before her accident but she didn’t hesitate for a moment. “Let’s get scrubbed in, Dr Campbell,” she said.

Luna settled at Bernie’s feet when she took her place in the operating theatre, decked out in sterilised gloves, cap and gown. “Not quite what I’m used to,” she murmured as Serena made her way to her side of the table. The patient was already there, quiet now that he’d been anaesthetised. His toad daemon was sleeping too, resting in the crook of his neck out of the way of the surgeons and their work.

“We could order in some sand and a few heating lamps if you’d prefer,” Serena replied, only her twinkling eyes visible above the surgical mask.

“I shall have to struggle on as we are,” Bernie sighed, glad when she was rewarded with a short laugh from her companion. But then chatter disappeared and they got down to business.

The patient’s arm was a raw, bloody mess, so the first order of business was to clean it. The harsh scent of disinfectant filled the air as they drenched cotton swab after cotton swab, but eventually they were ready to proceed to the next phase of the operation.

“Looks like some serious tendon damage,” Serena muttered. “He’ll be lucky to get full use of this again.”

But Bernie disagreed. “No - I’ve treated injuries like this before. There’s a technique I developed - I could talk you through it if you like?”

Serena shook her head. “I’ll take you up on that one of these days, but for now I suggest you get on and work your magic. I’ll concentrate on the blood supply.”

With that agreed Bernie took a suturing needle from Nurse Jackson, who had proved to be an able and efficient assistant, and got to work. She was concentrating so much on her own part of the procedure that for a long time she didn’t pay much attention to what Serena was doing at all. But gradually she got on top of her own work and was able to devote a little more attention to her counterpart.

Serena was in the grip of a fierce concentration, staring almost unblinkingly at the miniscule veins and blood vessels she was doggedly repairing. Her sutures were as tiny and neat as any Bernie had ever seen and she suddenly found that she was impressed, which was an unfamiliar sensation for her when working with a new surgeon. Bernie had been accused of arrogance in the past by more than one person, but the truth was she simply knew her worth and wasn’t interested in hiding it. In a man, the same trait was called confidence. She had found over the years that there were few surgeons to compare to her in a trauma situation and she’d become used to carrying more than her fair share of the work in shared procedures.

But Serena was dextrous, focused and gifted in a way that Bernie had rarely seen. She knew she couldn’t have made such a good job of restoring the patient’s blood supply herself, and said so.

Serena smiled faintly. “I have a secret weapon,” she murmured, nodding towards Barnabas who was resting on her shoulder as she worked and staring steadily at the wound. “An owl’s vision is far superior to a human’s, even in bright light, and Barnabas’s eyes are better than any true owl’s. We’ve always been particularly good at delicate work on small structures.”

“How wonderful,” Bernie said, smiling. “All Luna does for me in surgery is keep my feet warm.”

“I could do more, if you like,” the wolf said placidly from her position at Bernie’s feet. “Bite you if you’re getting tired, perhaps.”

“I’ll pass,” Bernie replied, and returned to her work.

After another half hour they were both done. They continued to work together as they closed up, delicately placing the torn fragments of skin together and suturing the wound closed like a fiendishly complex jigsaw puzzle. When at last the work was done they both straightened up, backs aching from the posture they’d been forced to adopt, but they were smiling.

“I’d say that was a very successful first venture for the new joint clinical leads,” Serena said breezily as she peeled off her gloves in the scrub room. The patient had been wheeled back onto the ward to recover, and both surgeons were quietly confident that he’d regain full use of his arm.

“Absolutely,” Bernie agreed. “I think we make rather a good team. We seem to have complementary skills.”

Serena nodded as she pulled off her gown and cap. “Still up for that drink? I know I could do with a glass of wine or five.”

“You read my mind,” Bernie replied, already imagining a roaring fire and a cheerful innkeeper bringing wine and perhaps a couple of menus. It had been a long day and she suddenly found she was ravenous. “Does it do food, this inn?”

“Certainly,” Serena said as she led Bernie back to the ward to retrieve their coats. “My treat, hmm? To celebrate our new partnership.”

Bernie pondered that word choice as they made their way out of the hospital together. “When I met you this afternoon, I certainly didn’t expect celebration to be on your mind anytime soon,” she said carefully.

Serena was silent for a moment. They had just pushed past the heavy main doors and emerged into the night. It was a clear evening, the stars twinkling overhead. The anbaric streetlights were just flickering on and the street outside the hospital was busy with staff coming and going, and visitors arriving to see their loved ones. Serena blew out a breath and watched it condense into a cloud in the chill night air.

“All my career, people have wanted me to fail,” she began slowly. “Whether it was those stuffy scholars in Oxford who thought that women should be making babies instead of practicing medicine, or other surgeons who saw me as a threat. I’ve never been able to rely on anyone. Never had a true equal.” She glanced at Bernie as they walked, almost shyly. “We’ve been thrown together by chance. It wasn’t what either of us expected or wanted. But I think...perhaps, if you agree...that we might come to trust each other?”

Bernie’s cheeks pinked a little at Serena’s words, and despite the chill of the night she suddenly felt warm. “I’d like that,” she replied huskily, then coughed to clear her throat. “I’ve never really had an equal either.”

Serena smiled, a true smile of uncomplicated pleasure that lit up her face and made her almost breathtakingly beautiful. Bernie had to look away to stop herself from staring.

“This is the place,” Serena said after another minute’s walk. The inn was indeed popular with hospital staff. A couple of nurses who evidently recognised Serena were leaving just as they approached, and Serena paused to greet them and exchange pleasantries for a few moments. While they chatted, Bernie let her eyes drift to the inn. It was a solid, old-fashioned looking sort of place, and Bernie could smell the aroma of beer and roasting meat wafting through the door each time it opened for a customer to enter or exit.

One such customer was exiting now. He was a gaunt man, around the same height as Bernie herself, with short brown hair and a severe expression. For one terrible moment Bernie’s heart clenched in surprise and fear, because she couldn’t see his daemon anywhere. But then the man moved slightly and she caught sight of a pair of shining eyes on his shoulder. Looking more closely she could see that his daemon was a chameleon, her scales blending in with the colour of his heavy wool coat.

The nurses bid them goodnight and Serena turned to head into the inn at last. When she spotted the new arrival Bernie was sure she saw a flicker of distaste cross her features, but she covered it quickly with a smile that came nowhere near her eyes.

“Professor Gaskell,” she greeted politely. “On your way home?”

The man didn’t smile. Instead, he stared at Serena unblinkingly for a long, silent moment. Bernie couldn’t take her eyes off his daemon. The chameleon was so still and quiet that it would be easy to forget she was even there. Beside her she felt Luna’s hackles raise, and she fumbled briefly at her side until she found the wolf’s shaggy head, gently soothing her by sinking her fingers into her fur.

“Dr Campbell,” Gaskell said at last. His voice was higher in pitch than Bernie had been expecting, smooth and flowing and yet somehow sinister too. “I’d have thought you’d be at church tonight, praying for the repose of Edward’s soul. We’re only a few days from the anniversary of his death, after all.”

Barnabas ruffled his feathers, the only thing to betray Serena’s inner consternation. “My husband died a martyr doing God’s work, or so I’m told,” she replied. “I’d think that would be more than enough to speed his soul off to paradise without any help from me.”

Gaskell’s facial expression didn’t change. He was as still and silent as his daemon. “I see,” he said at last. “Well, I certainly hope you’re right. Goodnight, ladies.”

He inclined his head towards Serena and Bernie in turn, then set off into the darkness. Serena waited until he’d rounded a corner before letting her false smile slip. “An old friend of my husband’s,” she explained to a nonplussed Bernie. “He’s doing some sort of research project in our basement labs at the moment. I don’t mind telling you, I’ll be glad when he’s finished. I thought I’d seen the last of him when Edward died.”

Bernie blinked slowly. “Edward,” she repeated softly. “Your husband was Edward Campbell?”

“Yes.” Serena frowned. “Did you know him?”

Bernie shook her head. “Only by reputation,” she murmured, a flicker of disquiet making her lips purse.

A grimace twisted Serena’s features. “Nothing good I’m sure,” she sighed.

But Bernie had turned and was staring back at the corner where Gaskell had last been seen. “It’s strange - I almost thought he didn’t have a daemon at first,” she murmured, almost to herself. 

Barnabas puffed up his feathers. “Sebya,” he said, almost spitting the name. “She likes to hide. Gives me the creeps.”

Bernie continued staring at the spot where Gaskell had disappeared from view, a slight frown on her face. She started slightly when she felt Serena’s hand on her wrist, drawing her towards the inn door. “Come on,” the other woman was saying. “I’m dying for a drink and a seat by the fire.”

Bernie resisted the gentle tug for a moment, her eyes still fixed on the darkened street corner. Then she relaxed. “Coming,” she replied, turning away from the shadows at last. Deliberately pushing Gaskell and his strange daemon to one side, she forced a smile onto her face and allowed herself to be pulled forward, towards the warmth and comfort of the inn, and Serena.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this world, experimental theology = physics and ordinators = computers.


	5. Basements and Boxes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hanssen visits Gaskell for an update on his project and meets one of the Professor's new volunteers. Meanwhile, Bernie is dutifully waiting for instructions from Oakley Street. Has she been forgotten?

The basement labs - or chapels as they were officially known - of St Luke’s hospital stretched across most of the building’s footprint. They had been largely empty for years, used as storage or occasionally as makeshift overflow wards during periods of epidemic or disaster. They’d even been flooded in the rains of ‘86, and it had been touch and go whether they could be made useable again. But Professor John Gaskell had needed a space to conduct his research and it had been decided at the highest levels that the shadowy basement labs of St Luke’s would be the perfect place.

Henrik Hanssen’s daemon, Ketselem, squawked uneasily as they made their way down the last set of stairs into the labs. Hanssen understood her disquiet. He had never liked visiting the basement, even before the rooms had been converted into Gaskell’s workplace. Bare brick walls and stone floors provided no warmth, and the the space was always several degrees cooler than Hanssen found comfortable. Gaskell never seemed to mind. Perhaps he was like his daemon, the silent and still chameleon, Sebya. Cold blooded.

Shaking off that thought, Hanssen straightened his shoulders and pressed on. “Professor?” he called, checking each room in turn as he passed the door. He sniffed daintily, lip curling upwards in distaste at the slight odour of damp on the air. Remediation work had been done on the building after the flood, but every time he came down to the basement he was sure he could detect traces of the waters that had once filled this place.

Professor Gaskell did not respond to his calls, but in the last room on the left he found someone else: a woman with short silver-blonde hair and a neat, prim daemon in the form of a fox by her side. Hanssen blinked in surprise. He hadn’t expected to find anyone down here but the professor.

“Good day,” he greeted formally, bowing his head slightly. “I’m looking for Professor Gaskell.”

The woman started in surprise. It appeared she’d been off in a world of her own. “Oh!” she exclaimed, her hand flying to her breast. “Sorry! You startled me - uhm, Professor Gaskell just stepped out for a few moments. He said he’d be back shortly.” She gestured to a chair opposite where she was sitting. “Would you care to wait?”

Hanssen considered her offer for a moment then nodded, unbuttoning his suit jacket as he sank into the hard wooden chair. Ketselem hopped off his shoulder and onto the back of the chair, eyeing the fox daemon speculatively.

“I’m Roxanna MacMillan,” the woman offered, leaning forward to hold out her hand for Hanssen to shake.

Hanssen accepted the proffered greeting. “Henrik Hanssen,” he replied, then nodded to his daemon. “Ketselem.”

Roxanna glanced at the fox on the floor beside her. “Brona,” she said. Her daemon looked up at her as she said the name then quickly looked away again, curling into a ball at Roxanna’s feet, close but not touching.

Hanssen inclined his head in acknowledgement. “Are you working with the Professor?”

Roxanna looked away, her lips thinning into a pinched line. “In a manner of speaking,” she replied. “I...I saw an advertisement after matins in the oratory one day last week. It said the Professor was looking for volunteers.” She coughed nervously. “Volunteers with a particular...condition, I suppose you might say.”

Hanssen glanced at Roxanna’s daemon and blinked in sudden understanding. “Volunteers with daemons who are the same sex as themselves,” he concluded. 

Roxanna nodded, and at her feet Brona seemed to curl into herself even more, covering her face with her bushy tail until only her gleaming eyes were visible. Roxanna pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and began to wring it anxiously between her hands. “Yes,” she said. “Exactly.”

Hanssen considered his response briefly, taking in the rigid set of her muscles as she perched on the edge of the chair. “I was aware that was the general thrust of his research,” he said mildly. “I was unaware he’d progressed to the experimental stage, however. What exactly will be your role?”

Some of Roxanna’s anxiety seemed to recede under the force of his calm, unhurried questioning. “I’m not sure yet,” she admitted. “This is...this is our first meeting.”

Hanssen regarded her silently for a moment, noting the careful way she kept an inch or two of space between her and her daemon at all times. Ketselem fluttered down to the floor and settled next to Brona, not touching, but close nonetheless. “Perhaps you wouldn’t mind indulging my curiosity while we wait,” Hanssen suggested. “I’m keen to know more about the next stage of the professor’s research. And about you, of course.”

When Professor Gaskell returned fifteen minutes later he found Hanssen and Roxanna talking quietly together, both of them leaning forward a little in their chairs as they spoke. In fact, it seemed as if they had pulled their chairs a little closer to each other at some point. Their daemons were also exchanging the odd word, too low for the humans to hear. 

Gaskell blinked slowly. “Mr Hanssen,” he said smoothly. “How kind of you to pay us a visit down here in the depths.” He finished the last word on a sibilant hiss that reminded Hanssen of the reptilian daemon that rested perpetually on his shoulder.

“Professor,” Hanssen replied, carefully disguising a little stab of disappointment. Roxanna was a much more pleasant conversationalist than Gaskell and he would have preferred to spend a little longer with her. But he had come to the basement for a purpose. “I’m here for a status report on behalf of the Board of Trustees. Is this a convenient time?”

Gaskell inclined his head. “Certainly. You’ve come at a very exciting moment, in fact. Miss MacMillan here is the first volunteer for phase three of the project.”

He strode across the room to a second door at the other end, gesturing Hanssen and Roxanna to follow him. They did so, their daemons fluttering or trotting respectively behind them.

The room Gaskell led them into had been decked out as some kind of study. The bare brick walls were covered in bookcases, and every shelf was filled with various leather-bound volumes. Hanssen cast his eye over them but was only able to take in a few titles -  _ The Nature of Sin. Dust and the Daemon Bond. Daemonology of the 20th Century -  _  before Gaskell indicated he should sit down. 

“As I was saying,” Gaskell began, drawing Hanssen’s attention away from the books. “I’ve reached a very exciting stage in my research. I’ve come as far as I can with cadavers and so forth. I came to the conclusion some time ago that I would require living subjects. Miss MacMillan here has the honour of being my first volunteer.”

A tight, nervous smile curled Roxanna’s lips upwards briefly before falling from her face. “Professor Gaskell has explained how important it is for his work that he can observe and study living daemon subjects.”

Hanssen shot a glance towards the fox, Brona, who was once again curled on the floor by Roxanna’s feet. “What will this study involve, exactly?”

Gaskell held out his hands, smiling in what he probably thought was a reassuring fashion. “Nothing intrusive,” he said. “I’d like to observe the interaction between human and daemon. Conduct some measurements. Make some comparisons of the strength of the Rusakov field surrounding such daemons compared to normal-” He paused, glancing briefly at Roxanna before beginning again. “Compared to more typical examples.”

Ketselem shifted uncomfortably on Hanssen’s shoulder, her beady eyes flicking from Brona to Sebya and back again. “For what purpose?” Hanssen asked. His tone, often cold, was a degree icier than normal.

Gaskell blinked slowly. “To find out why such situations occur, of course,” he said. “And to discover how to prevent them from happening.”

Hanssen felt a shiver of trepidation flit down his spine, but he showed no outward sign of disquiet. “You believe the phenomenon to be disadvantageous in some way then?”

“Of course.” Gaskell leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers together. “Contemporary daemonology tells us that the fundamental essence of human beings is a blend of male and female. In subjects such as Miss MacMillan here, that balance is out of its natural alignment. It’s our duty to help such people; don’t you agree, Mr Hanssen?”

Ketselem dug her talons into Hanssen’s shoulder. They both felt a mild spark of pain, but Hanssen kept his face rigid and unresponsive. “It’s our duty to help everyone in need, Professor,” he said, then glanced briefly at Roxanna and her daemon. “If they are, in fact, in need.” Abruptly he stood, dusting off the sleeves of his jacket fastidiously. “Thank you for the report,” he said. “Do keep me informed as to the progress of your research.”

Gaskell inclined his head. “Certainly. I’ll be able to make a start with Miss MacMillan here, but I expect to have another volunteer arriving within a few days. I’ve been in correspondence with him for some time, in fact.”

“Indeed? Well...I’m sure you’re glad to be pressing ahead.” Hanssen made to leave, but stopped when Gaskell called him back.

“I have a book here, if you’re interested,” he said, his eyes scanning across the shelves before selecting a heavy, leather-bound tome and drawing it free. He handed it to Hanssen with the ghost of a smile. “It’s one of my own works, in fact, though I was writing under a literary pseudonym at the time. I think you’ll find it...illuminating.”

Hanssen grunted his thanks as he accepted the book and tucked it under his arm. With a final glance and nod towards Roxanna, he took his leave, waiting until he was alone in the stairwell that led up from the basement to pause and reflect on his encounter with the recalcitrant Professor.

Gaskell had been working in the hospital’s basement for several months. He’d been another addition to the hospital’s staff over which Hanssen had had very little control. Part surgeon, part philosopher, part experimental theologian, Gaskell was an enigma that Hanssen would very much have liked to demystify. He had found him to be almost fanatically pious when they first met, and his bald statement that his aim was to prevent the existence of people with same sex daemons had chilled Hanssen to the bone.

_ “Out of its natural alignment,” _ croaked Ketselem indignantly. “If it’s not natural then why does it occur in nature, hmm?”

Hanssen shook his head, pulling the book Gaskell had given him from under his arm and glancing at the cover. “Perhaps his scholarly work will give us an insight into his thought processes,” he murmured as he traced his fingers over the embossed edge of the title.

_ Daemons, Humans and the Source of Sin, by Professor JG Maystadt. _

* * *

Bernie Wolfe stepped over the threshold of her front door and was immediately smacked in the face by cold. The wind was like being pricked by a dozen icy knives, and she found herself taking a single step back in reaction to the contrast between her warm, cosy house and the frigid outdoors.

“Definitely winter, old girl,” she grunted as Luna pressed against her side. “Haven’t experienced this in a while, hmm?” Her daemon just exhaled loudly, her breath condensing in the frigid air and rising like a puff of steam from her nose.

Bernie turned her collar up against the chill. It was early, before seven am, and the sun was hours away from rising. Ideally Bernie would be hours from rising too, but she had a few miles to walk before starting her shift at the hospital. 

She tried to take a different route each day to what Oakley Street rather quaintly called left-luggage boxes. She’d been trained in counter-surveillance when she was an active operative, and she still tried to keep her skills sharp despite not being called upon to use them for several months.

She had, of course, burned the card on which Colonel Anstruther had written the locations of her boxes after memorising them, and she now knew each one like the face of her own daemon. She had visited them often enough - every morning before going to work for the last two months, despite Colonel Anstruther’s instruction to visit only once a week. But every morning the result was the same - nothing.

“Do you think old Anstruther was just humouring us?” Luna asked sleepily as she trudged along at Bernie’s side, her fur ruffled against the cold.

Bernie shrugged. “Maybe,” she conceded. She’d been adamant at first that Oakley Street wouldn’t forget her, that they’d find some sort of use for her in this civilian life. She knew that there were operatives in Brytain who didn’t travel, who put their skills to work in opposition to the Magisterium and the CCD here at home in their own ways. She’d thought of a number of things she could be doing, but communication - or lack of communication - with Oakley Street was only running one way at the moment. So she stuck to her routine of tramping between left-luggage boxes, hoping every time that there’d be some word, some hint that she had not been forgotten. And each day she was disappointed.

Luna sensed her despondency. “Cheer up,” she murmured. “Even if they don’t have any use for you anymore, you’re still doing some good in the world. How about that aneurysm repair with Serena yesterday?”

Bernie’s lips curled into a smile at the memory. That had been a good surgery, with both of them working to their limits, quickly and efficiently, always seeming to know exactly what the other would require almost before they needed it. “It’s like watching a ballet, you two,” Donna Jackson had said as they peeled off their gloves and gowns after the surgery. Bernie remembered feeling a warm rush of belonging when Serena smiled and patted her arm. Not even in the army had she felt so at home, so comfortable in displaying her talents, in pushing another surgeon to be better, to do more. Because the truth was Serena pushed her just as much. 

“Mortality rates in surgery are down 4.2% since you arrived,” Serena had told her just last week. “And they were already at a historic low.” That evening they’d celebrated with three bottles of Serena’s favourite Syrah at Albert’s Inn, and Bernie had woken with a thumping headache the next morning, but a light heart.

“Yes,” Bernie agreed, her chest filling with warmth at the memory of Serena’s shining eyes after the surgery, at the way she’d made sure to fully detail Bernie’s contribution on the patient’s notes. So unlike the surgeons she’d worked with in the past - all men - who’d tried to sideline her and to downplay her abilities, then accused her of pettiness and arrogance when she insisted on her proper recognition.

“I really like Serena,” she murmured, almost to herself, but Luna’s ears pricked.

“I know,” the wolf replied, just as quietly. “You haven’t liked anyone this much since-”

“Alex,” Bernie finished for her. But she didn’t want to think about Alex now.

Lapsing into silence, Bernie and Luna quickened their pace. There were five boxes to visit before Bernie’s shift began. They arrived at the first - a loose stone in the garden wall of an empty house - a little over ten minutes later. Bernie checked left and right before lifting the stone to the side and checking the space behind it.

Empty.

Biting back her disappointment, Bernie replaced the stone. “Nothing,” she grumbled, kicking a loose pebble as she began walking again.

Luna glanced up at her as they made their way to the end of the street. “Were you expecting anything else?”

“Not really,” Bernie admitted. “But I can never seem to stop hoping.”

She’d only been a field agent for five years before the accident. Always a somewhat shadowy organisation, Oakley Street had been pushed even further underground by the landslide victory of the Traditionalist party in the election of 1980. Prior to that, Brytain had been something of an odd man out among the major European powers, preferring to maintain at least a nominal distance between the Church and the state. But the Traditionalists were firmly in the pocket of Geneva and factions such as the Consistorial Court had immediately begun gaining influence. In fact, one of the first laws the new government had passed all those years ago was to revive the ancient punishment for the crime of heresy. Bernie had been unfortunate enough to witness three of the executions.

When Alex had recruited her for Oakley Street, she’d thought at last that she might be able to be a part of some real change. She had no illusions - she knew that her “side” could be brutally pragmatic at times, sacrificing agents and even whole cells for the greater good. She’d just never truly believed that she would end up as one of those discarded pawns.

If anything, she’d thought she’d probably end up like Alex.

Against her will, her mind supplied an image of Alex’s face, smiling and laughing in the mess tent as she shared some insignificant story about her day, Bernie hanging on her every word like Alex was reciting a new bestseller. She’d always had that effect on Bernie, usually so reticent in personal relationships. Over the course of her career in the army, Bernie had worked and pushed and forced her way into a position of respect. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, she had not been particularly well loved by her comrades. Liked, certainly. Looked up to by some, even. But Bernie had never been good at finding the words that would draw people close to her heart.

But with Alex, she hadn’t needed to. Alex just pushed her way in and made a home. Was it any wonder Bernie had fallen in love - hopelessly, wondrously, deliriously in love, for the first time in her life?

“Do you remember that time you and I and Alex and Kiburi decided to race around the compound?” she asked Luna absently, her mind already returning to that day, the way Alex’s eyes had gleamed and her daemon - a sleek, long-limbed serval - had faced down Luna with a haughty, arrogant air that was belied only by the twitching of his ears.

“Of course I remember,” Luna grunted in reply. “We would have beaten them easily if you hadn’t faked that stitch.”

“I didn’t fake it,” Bernie said indignantly. “I just...exaggerated it slightly.” She cast a knowing glance at her daemon. “And she was so happy to win. Her face lit up like a firework, d’you remember?”

Luna looked away and stared at a point in the middle distance, lost in the memory. “She was so beautiful that day,” she said, then shook her head as if to clear it. “I’m amazed she still brought you on board after that,” she went on in a tone of forced joviality. “I suppose she must have seen something in you beyond running ability.”

Bernie barked out a laugh. “I suppose so,” she agreed. “Like determination.” 

They had arrived at the second left-luggage box. This time it was a notch in an old oak tree, partially obscured by a low hanging branch. Trying not to get her hopes up, Bernie slid her fingers inside, rooting around in search of the smooth, carved acorn that would hold Oakley Street’s instructions.

But again, there was nothing.

Luna’s ears flattened against her skull. “Maybe we could skip the rest today,” she suggested. “Head in to work early, take care of some of the paperwork you’ve been letting mount up.”

Bernie shook her head. “There are three left,” she insisted.

But the next two boxes were also empty. The sun was just beginning to peek over the horizon as she walked away from the fourth one, her jaw set and her lips drawn in a thin line. Sensing her agitation, Luna pressed briefly against her leg. “Serena lives near here, doesn’t she?” she said, trying to distract Bernie from the gloom that was gathering in her mind.

Bernie looked up as if noticing the neighbourhood for the first time. “Hmm?” she said. “Oh. Yes, I suppose she does.”

She had been invited back to Serena’s house twice now, both times after Albert had closed up for the night but Serena wasn’t done holding court. She had a lovely home, very much what Bernie had expected from her, with beautiful, antique furniture and tasteful, understated decor. Bernie’s own house was far more spartan by comparison, though she had begun to make it a home with small touches here and there. The one thing both women’s homes had in common was a lack of servants. Most people of their social standing had at least one, but Serena had explained that she’d never felt comfortable with the expectation that she should have a maid.

“Probably didn’t help that Edward had his way with most of them over the years,” she’d mumbled under her breath when the topic had come up.

Bernie, on the other hand, simply couldn’t afford to have someone in her home who might question her movements, or make note of odd hours if she were ever to become a live operative again. She could only flourish in absolute secrecy. Lucky, then, that she’d had so much practice over the years keeping her cards close to her chest.

“Last one,” Luna remarked as they entered the park. The leaves were all gone from the trees now and the branches looked stark and bare in the milky early morning light. The final left-luggage box was by a small duck pond, concealed in a hollow that had been carved out under a rock.

Bernie looked around to check the coast was clear before lifting the rock, her mind already meandering forward to the patients that were on the ward and the procedures she’d have to perform that day. She was so sure that the hollow would be empty that it took her a long, dumbly blinking moment to realise that there was something there waiting for her.

An acorn. A single perfect, beautiful, carved wooden acorn.

Her heart in her mouth, she reached forward and grasped it between her fingers. It was cold and smooth, almost like a real acorn but heavier and subtly different to the touch. She could feel Luna breathing hard at her neck as she fumbled with the top, unscrewing the cap clockwise like she’d been shown all those months ago back in Damascus. The threads of the little cap were so small that she had to turn it a dozen times before it fell open to reveal a tiny piece of folded India paper.

“What does it say?” Luna breathed as Bernie carefully unfolded the message. The paper was thin but strong, and the text had been written neatly in black ink with a thin-nibbed pen.

_ Maintain readiness and await developments. You have not been forgotten. _

Bernie held her breath then slowly exhaled. Luna pushed her face forward to read the message herself, nuzzling briefly against Bernie’s cheek.

“Does this mean they’ll have something for us soon?” she asked, cautious excitement colouring her voice. “Something for us to do at long last?”

Bernie’s heart was beating a hard staccato rhythm against her chest. “It just might,” she murmured back. “I think it just might…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, the metaphors aren't subtle.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm trying to keep this story comprehensible to people who haven't read HDM - if you have any questions, please let me know in the comments and I'll do my best to answer them :-) Pullman uses a number of unusual terms in the books which I'll be trying to replicate here. [This is a brief list](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/His_Dark_Materials#Terminology) of the most important ones.


End file.
